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Wine Dinner organized by
Hyderabad Wine Club at Hotel GREEN PARK on Sunday 27TH June
2004 1900 hrs
Technical
information on Wines
Nikhil From Dejeeba
Wines - Speech
We welcome the
members of our Club, our Journalist friends to our Second Wine Dinner.
The first event was organized at Hotel Viceroy and we have tasted three
types of wines of M/s Chateau Indage – Chenic Blanc / Muscat, Riviera,
Malbec with food to match. We are happy that the event went on well and
our wine club members could enjoy and spend some informative time during
that wine dinner. Unfortunately some of the members missed the event
due to unavoidable reasons.
Now as far as the present dinner is
concerned, we will be tasting some new Indian Wines manufactured by M/s
Dajeeba Wines of Sangli, Maharastra. Maharastra is one state, which
aggressively encouraging wine industry as one of Agro-Tech Industries.
Maharastra State Industrial Development Corporation is offering liberal
concessions to wine manufacturers in the form of land, finances, tax
holidays etc., and it is not surprising that in the last 2-3 years 40
licences were issued by Maharastra government. Small and big wine
manufacturers started their wineries utilizing the incentives given by
Maharastra Government. Classic Varieties of wine grape stocks were
either imported from France or developed by the Central Grape Research
Institute, Pune are finding their place in Grape Growers Farms and Wine
makers in their turn, assuring the grape farmers a steady income for
their yield. It is also interesting to note that a new breed of
Engineer-Wine Makers are establishing them selves in wine Industry
similar to the Doctor-Wine Makers of New Zealand and California.
Next in the line is Karnataka
government, which too is encouraging wine makers in its own way. It is
not surprising that one of the leading Wine Manufacturing house got well
established in this area to make and market classic wines.
In this
respect, Andhra Pradesh Government is lagging behind. Forget about
the wine industry – even decent wines are not available in AP due to
exorbitant duties on wines. It is unfortunate that most of the wine
lovers bring their wines from adjoining states. Here wines are treated
on par with any other hard liquor for the purpose of taxing and label
charges are almost 400 to 800 % higher than the neighboring states.
Most of the wine manufacturers are shunning away and the losers are the
people living in Andhra. With lots of scientific evidence coming out,
that wine consumption is good for health, it is high time, efforts
should take place to wean away people from the habit of hard liquor to
that of a fermented and healthy drink – ie., WINE. It is not the
fashion, but necessity making most of the people in developed countries
like US,UK and other European countries shifting to wine drinking. It
is one of the aims of our club to encourage wine culture in AP. I
request our journalist friends to give necessary coverage to the public
regarding wine and also to make our government realize that investment
in wine industry is investment in people’s health. Andhra Pradesh is
well suited for Wine industry and our Grape growers will happily shift
to wine grapes, if given proper incentives similar to Maharastra,. Our
farmers will also get benefited, where we the wine lovers will get good
wines at an affordable price. This situation will encourage people
shifting from that of hard liquors to wine.
Today we will be tasting five types
of wines – one white SAMBI - (Sauvignon Blanc), One Rose
ZAFAR - (Zinfandel), Three Reds ( WINDSOR - Cabernet
Sauvignon, VAISHALI - Shiraz and RANMEVA - Merlot) with
matching food. Mr. Pavan Kumar, the Executive Chef of Green Park has
taken special interest in preparing matching food for each of the wine
we are tasting. I would like to express my thanks to Mr. Mario Cheriman
And Mr. Madhu Nair of Hotel Green Park for their cooperation in making
this dinner a possibility. I whole heartedly express my thanks to Mr.
Nikhil Thanedar and Mr. Subhash Jadav of M/s Dajeeba wines for their
cooperation in giving us wines for this wine dinner, in spite of the
fact that it is quite some tim
e that they can really launch their
product in Hyderabad in spite of the best efforts by wine lovers.
Most of you must have, one time or
other enjoyed some classic wines. Most of the established wineries of
the West were developed over long periods and intricacies of finer wines
were mastered over a period of time. Even though, Indian Wine Industry
is in its infancy, wines coming out of Indian wineries are being made
using latest technological advances in this industry. Indian Winemakers
are trying their best to make some of the Classic wines on par with
imported ones. As far as our Wine dinners/ Wine Tasting Sessions and
Wine Appreciation Talks are concerned, We will try to procure as many
varieties of wines as possible both Indian and Imported, so that our
members will have the opportunity in tasting different wines. As our
Club’s aim is to encourage wine culture in Hyderabad, we will be tasting
different wines from various countries, established and upcoming
wineries of India. We would like to see that our government comes
forward with attractive policies similar to Maharastra related to wine
industry, so that Andhra Pradesh will become another ‘Wine Centre’ of
India.
With this small brief about the wine
situation in our place, I request our Guest, the Wine Maker Mr. Nikhil
Tanedar, of M/s Dajeeba Wineries of Sangli, Maharastra to give an over
all picture about “Growing wine industry” in India in general
and Maharastra in particular. I hope with more and more wine
manufacturers entering the business, we certainly expect to get good
wines at a reasonable price in the near future.
Balaji Rao BK
President, Hyderabad Wine Club |
