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While ‘Winoledge’ enters into its fifth month,
I feel happy to answer your questions on the subject. Winoledge is a journey
in no pursuit of a particular destination, the very objective is fulfilled
in finding the increasing interest of the readers .
While wine drinking is in the ‘just begun’ stage as compared to culturally
wine drinking countries (No knitpicking please !!!), wine making too is an
infant enterprise. Thinking about a well established wine making nation,
India does need a few good vintages(particular years with the best of
harvest supported by ideal weather conditions resulting in top quality
products) and a long haul of yearly productions from different wineries to
‘get there’ and Indian wines will arrive in the international market. The
question is when?
The answer is ‘I don’t Know’.
My unconditional faith in the climatic and microclimatic influences,
increasing interests, new upcoming wineries, growing awareness just make me
think that we will be a force in wine making to reckon with.
My presumptions are based on the facts that India is no different then any
other new world wine making country. It’s been through the feasibility
stage, studies and research outcomes have been positive, the rest needs to
be done in terms of our quality and an all round legacy building exercise.
In the month of November last year, I was invited to a wine festival in the
Martinborough region in southern part of North Island, New Zealand.
The festival involved buses running across all different vineyards,
showcasing the best of produce for that year. The tourists and visitors were
provided with a wine glass (well marked with tasting limits and scales)
hanging on the neck with a well tied rope. All you needed to do was hop on
the bus visiting as many vineyards as you could and indulge your self into a
serious Horizontal tasting( the practising of tasting wines of the same
variety of the same year from different wineries) exercise. The writers
would make their very own tasting notes without any bias and all this
attracted tremendous media attention. The festival grew into a more of a day
out dancing and drinking with the Jazz music kind of an experience but the
event served its purpose. Not only did it make space as an annual feature in
the region it sowed seeds of wine tourism and the legacy will get built on.
Year by year the regular writes will keep recording their tastings, Vertical
Tasting (tasting the same wine year after year to record the change in
character, taste and flavour). This will be followed by compilation of data,
and not long after, the festival will become an international attraction.
Some of the visitors just swooned over what they had just tasted and Bingo
–Mission was accomplished.
This whole event was essentially a well planned marketing tool to put the
region’s wines in the limelight. Not surprised a single bit was I, when this
year another wine making region- Auckland, conducted its own wine festival.
Wine tourism is a good way to put our products on a common platform and
offer them to the world. If done in India, this will result in more
visitors, customers, investors, awareness, drinkers (read wine drinker not
drunkards), tie ups will soon catapult India into a fine wine making country
with its share of international media attention.
As mysterious as the reasons may be, wines of different Grape verities have
glimpses of varied tastes from Leather to berries, oaks, bananas, biscuits,
apple, cherry, nuts, metals in their taste and after taste. Some of these
flavours keeps dwindling in the mouth long after consumption, How
interesting is that…? The wine drinker feels all the more excited to try yet
another varietal wine(wines that get their name from the grape varieties
used to make them), with the same taste but a new streak. This is a where a
big potential lies in our favour. With the varied topography and climate,
who knows which part of India can give a run for its money to the best of
Bordeaux and Barossa.
Way to Go Indian wine followers.…… have a sensational month ahead.
Cheers,
Yogeesh |
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