PHOTO: K. MURALI KUMAR
It was just a matter of time before someone woke up to the fact that Bangalore’s rich, loamy soil, warm days and cool nights, its temperate climate was good, maybe even ideal, for producing the best varietals of grape. Then, of course, there was no looking back.
When you think about it, it isn’t the least surprising.
Given that Bangalore’s strong liquor links date back to well before the IT
hordes came swarming in, today, the fact that there are many flourishing
vineyards and wineries on the outskirts of
the city and many a Bangalorean, fourth- generation or fresh off the plane/
train, is drinking wine most happily, will elicit only one response: salut!
The figures look good. The city holds second place in the
list of wine producing places and third
place in the wine-drinking cities list. In the period from June 2012 up to June
2013, Bangalore consumed 45,000 cases which translates to 40, lakh litres of
wine. Further broken down, sales of red wine constituted the larger share of that pie, at 55 per cent,
while white wine stood at 40 % and rose, at a paltry 1-2
per cent. However, given that wine sales have been leaping by as much as 30% in the last few
years, Pub City may well become Wine City, at some point in time.
Wine renaissance
This is actually a wine renaissance. The first wave came like
an elegant surge, grandly heralded and more
than a wee bit pretentious, trailing in its wake a whole new sub-caste: the
wine cognoscenti, people who compared Cabernets, Merlots and Shiraz, sniffed,
sipped and spat, and dispensed patronising doses of appreciation for the
ambrosia under discussion. Wine and cheese evenings were all the thing. The
media went mad and there was much talk of smoky aftertastes, intermixed with
oak, wit and irony. Paeans were sung over many marked- up wines, cognitive connections were
made with the blushful Hippocrene.
The hoi polloi, meanwhile, watched with a lot of interest.
They then headed for the shops, picked up a bottle of whatever looked good and
didn’t cost too much, (premium wines retail at upwards of Rs 500) and headed
home. Sometimes they remembered to chill it, most times they drank it at room temperatures.
So much for telling your rose
from your blanc.
Somewhere in all the hype, we had lost sight of the fact that
basically, wine-drinking was and is, an intensely tactile experience: you drank
what looked good to your eyes and tasted even better on your tongue.
Also, we were trying too hard. Unlike in parts of the West, particularly
in Europe, India does not have a wine-drinking culture, notwithstanding the
legends surrounding soma. If Indians drank wine, they drank it like they drank
hard liquor: before sitting down to a meal.
Of course, port wines and fortified wines (sherry, Madeira, and the
like) had and continue to have their own niche.
However, the times they were a-changing and naturally,
things had to change too. Indians were going abroad in droves, for business and
pleasure , and many of them came back with a bottle or two of wine nestled
alongside the Chivas and Glenfiddich in
their duty-free bags. It was just a matter of time before someone woke up to
the fact that Bangalore’s rich, loamy soil, warm days and cool nights, its
temperate climate was good, maybe even ideal, for producing the best varietals of grape. Then, of course,
there was no looking back.
Bangalore is today the third largest wine consuming city in
the country after Goa and Mumbai. There
are 22 and counting wineries around
Bangalore across the Nandi valley, Krishna valley and Cauvery valley areas, big
names like Grovers, Red Hills, Four Seasons, Heritage and the latest crimson
gleam on the Bangalore horizon, the SDU Winery. The wine growers and vintners
have their grouses but on the whole, a supportive government, the licensing path made fairly tangle-free and a spatial
history of being particularly sophisticated vis-a- vis liquor, all work in Bangalore’s
favour.
And
so, Bangalore’s vineyards today can
boast of producing Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot noir, Merlot, Pinnotage,
Shiraz, Zinfadel, Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc. The Grovers
are old vets, credited with having planted wine flags in Bangalore 25 years ago. Their Viognier, made
from Rhone
valley grape, is a perennial favourite with serious wine drinkers. Heritage Wines produces a
variety that spans Cabernet, Shiraz, Chenin Blanc, bubbly wine, even a sweet
red wine, and claim to have cornered 75 % of the city`s wine market sales.
Says
Kapil Grover, ``There are really only two states, Karnataka and Maharashtra, which are important producers of wine. Of course
Maharashtra leads; they declared a wine
policy almost seven years before Karnataka,
which includes subsidies to the farming community to encourage them to
establish wineries. But in my opinion, Bangalore
is already a serious wine drinking city .``
Huge potential
While some of the
wineries host grape- stomping fetes, wine festivals, take groups of the curious
down wine trails, hold wine education seminars, SDU’s Shambhavi Hingorani has decided on the straight and direct course:
to stock the city’s wine shops with bottles of their Deva wine, and let the good word get around. SDU has a Cabernet
Sauvignon and a Syrah out on the shelves, 5,000 cases of easy-drinking wine
made from international grape, with an Italian vintner to oversee things.
Andréa Valentinuzzi , their wine man, hands out the bouquets
and the brickbats in equal part. He scoffs at the amount of `garbage` that is
sold as wine in India; even fruit vinegars which have no grape in them are
labeled fruit wines, he says in a pained manner. Then he goes on to aver that
wine could all too easily be the next big thing, for Bangalore and for the
country, given the huge potential everyone is looking at.
This time round, wine has acquired an exciting cache and
lost all traces of intimidation. Shambhavi Hingorani of SDU says categorically,
``Bangaloreans are serious about the wine they drink. `` Indeed, Bangaloreans, young and old, are turning enthusiastic as
well as discerning wine drinkers, helped along by smartphone apps and websites
like Poshvine. Wine clubs there are aplenty, all of them flourishing. Wine
plays a vital role in many are guided food walks. Many restaurants and some pizzerias too, have a comprehensive
wine menu. Chef Manu Chandra, Executive Chef, Olive
Beach, Bangalore, LikeThatOnly and Monkey Bar, says, " It's almost a given now for Bangaloreans
to head to a nice restaurant and enjoy a few glasses if not bottles of wine,
with your meal. The trend is still heavily in favour of reds over whites.
This is puzzling because whites are better suited to the Indian climate, pair
with a large variety of cuisines, and also perfect aperitifs, something that
fits into the Indian way of drinking far better than food pairing does. Then
again, the popularity of reds gives a restaurateur greater variety in terms of what
he/she can add to the wine list and serve by the glass. ``
Here to stay
In its second coming, wine is here for the long haul and Bangalore is quite
definitely in the vanguard of the
movement. As Andrea says, it takes more than a decade to get a winery up and
running. The elements of nature like heat, fluctuating humidity and sunlight could
well play havoc with the wine-making process. Storage and transportation, too,
are fraught with risks. But the vintners are learning fast on the job and the
city is cheering them on.
So, while wine is
still a market-driven drink, it is now acquiring an individual character all
its own. Not as the ideal gift to give your host at a dinner party, or to serve
to the ladies while the men sip their single malts. Not something to drink when
you know that breath analyzer device awaits you out on the road. This is bottled
effervescence, something to pour into a glass and enjoy with a dish of pasta el
olio or kadai chicken.
Indeed, Keats may well have been talking about namma
Bangalore when he penned the immortal lines:
O for a beaker full
of the warm South
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim.
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim.
BOX
Wine etiquette:
Do gargle with that first mouthful so that the wine
fills the entire mouth.
Thereafter, sip, don’t gulp.
Hold the glass by the stem.
Chill your white wines. Bring it out of the fridge one hour
before pouring.
Cool your red and roses.
Wine is best had with food. Better still, wine is best
ordered after food is ordered.
Just drink it all up. Wine really cannot be stored too well
in our climate, three months maximum.