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First Wine Dinner by Hyderabad Wine
Club on 15th February 2004, Sunday at Hotel Viceroy
Dear Friends
Welcome
to this humble beginning of our Hyderabad Wine Club
We have formed this
club with the main idea of promoting health through wine. More and more
scientific evidence is showing that wine is good for health. Dr. Serge
Renaud, Research Director, Segalen University in Bordeaux first
associated the favorable aspects of some compounds found in wine and
coined the term ‘French Paradox’. The French eat a lot more butter,
cheese, eggs and sauces in their food than the Americans, smoke more
cigarettes and barely exercise have only one-third the incidence of
cardiac heart disease (CHD). They are the second highest drinkers of
wine and have the second lowest rate of heart diseases in the world. The
studies had linked this Paradox to the French habit of regular, moderate
wine drinking with food.
It is not the aim
of our club to promote drinking. But if you are a so called social
drinker – better shift to wine. But there lies the hitch. The present
day price of wine is exorbitant that it is beyond the reach of common
man. And if it is not available to common man, the prices will remain
same. If more and more people shifts to wine, the principle of demand
and supply catches up, with more wineries coming, wine will be available
at an affordable price and in no time the consumer is the winner.
Our neighboring
states – both Karnataka and Maharastra are aggressively promoting wine
industry. Maharastra even created Vinchur Wine Park near Nasik –
attracting wine growers to venture in to wine related industries.
Concessions like tax holidays, subsidised land, finances are liberally
offered to promote wine. It may not be a surprise if tomorrow the
Sangli-Nasik area becomes another Napa Valley for fine wines. We have
all facilities in Hyderabad, it is a fast growing modern city attracting
foreign ventures and it should also see the need for wine for improving
the tourism industry. Hyderabad and neighboring districts are grape
growing areas and well suited for promoting wine related industries. It
is one of our club’s objectives to lobby with our AP government to
promote this wine related industries, treating wine making an agro-tech
industry, there by making wine available at an affordable price to the
public. Here everybody is a winner – the farmer, the industrialist, the
government and the consumer. This is a win-win situation
Now to put it in
simple terms – our main objective is to have a good evening with family,
good wine and good food. Since we have formed as an organized group,
this group activity enabled us to procure some of the good wines from
Bangalore.
Today we will be
tasting three types of wines – one White and two Red. The white is
Chenin Blanc/ Muscat where as the reds are Riviera and Melbac. Both
Chenin Blanc and Melbec are suggested wines by Bangalore wine club.
They are supposed to be finer wines from M/s Chateau Indage group of
industries. It is unfortunate that Indage could not sponsor our wine
dinner due to some limitations, in spite of the best efforts by their
Senior Marketing Executive Mr. Kishan. Hope the situation will improve
and let us expect that we will have better opportunity to taste all the
wines from their celler in our future gatherings.
I also thank Ms.
Nirmala of Metro Plus Hindu for sending
their representative Mr. Sowvik Chodhary to cover this event.
We would like to
communicate through e-mail and hence request all members to give their
e-mail or an e-mail with which they can be reached. I also request you
to check the correct ness of your particulars. Since ours is a purely
a social gathering, I request you give your suggestions, if any for
improving the activities of our club.
We have here with
us Mr. Ram Mukherjee, Wine Specialist from Denko Wine Consultants. He
will brief you about the fundamentals of wine “Know the Wine”. I would
like it to be more an interactive session so that our members get
benefited from his vast experience.
Before this I
request Mr. Nisheet, to give a little details about the teething
troubles we faced in organizing the first dinner.
Balaji Rao BK,
President, Hyderabad Wine Club
The wines we are tasing today are:
Chenic
Blanc/ Muscat the white wine from IVY range of Indage group – made from
to white grapes. Manufacturer’s claim is that it is a well balanced
wine, tasty and crisp with nice fruity aroma and a clean long finish.
The matching food will be pastas, salads and seafood.
The second one is
Riviera Red, one of few wines available in Hyderabad. Other Wine clubs
have not given a high grades to this wine, but we want to include here
as members can differentiate between wines. It is made from Ugni Bland
and Chardonnay. Claims are that it has a fresh fruity taste with a tint
of exotic lines with floral grassy bouquet
The Third one is
Malbec another fine wine of IVY range - made from malbec grapes.
Matching food will be red meats, pastas, curries.
Hope members can
get slowly introduced to the nuances of these wines. The matching food
prepared by Mr. Srinath for these wines are mainly western
continental: Veg. Minestrome Soup, Roast lamb, Stir fried chicken
with vegetables, Veg. Augratin, Salt & pepper baby corn & mushroom,
Cottage cheese in tangy sauce, Veg. Soft noodles, Spinach Fired rice,
Chocolate Rasmalai terine, Fruit salad and Garden green salad, Russian
salad, Tossed salad
I would
like to have a marriage between Indian habit of cocktails and food and
French tradition of Food with wine. Since the ladies in the formal case
is a neglected lot, I want our ladies to take active participation in
our wine educative dinner.
Let us have the
first wine and I suggest members to bring matching food and we will have
an interactive session with wines.
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Comments by
Dr. Mrs. Tamara Gour, my wife and a helping hand in this event.
About 16
people attended the dinner and all were fully satisfied, including The
Hindu representative, Mr. Souvik Chodhury, Sub-Editor, who said that
he can spare only ½ hour but sat till the end. It was a fun lovers
gathering with little official touch, informative (about wines of
course), question and answers session, people gave different suggestions
how to develop the club.....it was totally a new experience for all of
us. |
