What I Drink: Jug Suraiya

In 2005, we asked wine aficionado, Jug Suraiya, which wines he drinks. Columnist, travel writer and author, Suraiya lives in Gurgaon with his wife Bunny. Ten years on, we posed the same question to him. Although his awareness and knowledge of wine has grown exponentially, his response was essentially the same. He simply loves wine! Wine is a daily staple of the Suraiya dinner table, with Australian Shiraz, Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon and Grover’s La Reserve being the preferred choices.  

2005 I am not a wine snob. I know there is red wine, white wine and an in-between wine called rosé which seems to suffer from an identity crisis. In London, I went to Vinopolis, an interactive museum dedicated to the history of wine. A Frenchman called Claude conducted a tasting session. He poured a thimbleful of wine, a Chardonnay, into our glasses. Claude told us to swirl our wine in the glass and observe its colour and clarity. I swirled energetically and observed that some drops sloshed out on to the tabletop. I dabbed them up with my fingers, which I licked. Claude looked reproachful.