Sangria ! My Favorite Cocktail.

One of my all-time favorite cocktails, the Sangria. Sangria is named after the Spanish word for "blood" - "sangre" because of its typical dark-red color. It is usually a summer drink. But then in most parts of India you can have it though the year.


The beauty of the Sangria is that the recipe is very flexible. In the essence of it, it consists of fruit juices and cut fruits with red wine being the most prominent ingredient.


A popular variation is one where you use white wine in place of red; this is called a Clerico (an Argentinian name) or even simply Sangria Blanco.



Let’s talk of my favorite Sangria recipe.

Key ingredients: serves 8-10 glasses
• Apple juice – ½ litre
• Orange juice – ½ litre
• 1 Apple
• 1 Orange
• 2 lemons
• Your favorite medium bodied or light red wine – ½ bottle

Process:
Dice the apple, I prefer un-peeled ones. Chop the orange in to neat circles. Pour the red wine over the fruits directly and let them soak for a bit (about 5-10 minutes). This makes the fruits zesty when eaten.
Then pour in both the juices and squeeze the two lemons fully in to the mix. Stir this in and add ice to serve chilled.
For garnishing you can add a few mint leaves. If you like your cocktails a little on the sweeter side then you can also add in some lime cordial, in this case use only one lemon.

That’s it, simple as that to make and serve.

More on the wine:

My preference is to use a wine which is lighter in body for this cocktail, full-bodied wine will tend to overpower in the combination. I would recommend a Shiraz or a Merlot for this; if you can lay your hands on a Beaujolais it will make the taste really nice. Since we don’t have locally made Beaujolais in the country they tend to be a little steep on the wallet which makes it difficult to use as a cocktail ingredient.

I would mostly suggest using the Vindiva or Big Banyan Shiraz, if you can grab a Grover’s Art Collection Shiraz that would also go down very well.

One variation to this basic sangria which I quite like is where you replace the red wine with a pink one. There are some excellent Rose’ wines available in the market, notably Grover’s Shiraz Rose’ and the Sante’ Rose. Just replace the red wine with this one. The taste perks up quite a bit.

If you are looking for a lively evening of music and drinks I would expressly recommend the sangria with a rose. To make it even more fun, you could secretly add in some Gin - 250 ml should make it a rocking party. Let’s christen this variation of the Spanish sangria with a desi name shall we, how about the Khooni Gulab. (promise a later post on Pink Wines).

To make it more summery you can always add strawberries, chop them in to half and make sure there are enough to be seen throughout the jug of Sangria. Gives a very good summery effect.

Personally I am not in favor of cucumbers in there, but hey, its a free world, add them if you feel compelled to.

In case you have any variations that you are really fond of then do send them across to me, will definitely feature them here or you can just add them in to the comments below.

Recently had this one at TLR in Hauz Khas, Delhi - cucumber was an ingredient in this one - not sure I agreed with it at all

Wine Glasses - Demystifying the Decanting !

So, there are wine glasses and there are wine glasses. Many good hotels (yeah including the Taj) botch up this simple but very important part of the wine experience. Here is your opportunity to go one up on all of them. 

Mainly there are four kinds of glasses that are in play where wine (including champagne here) is concerned. The type of glasses are, the narrow long one – called a flute, the regular wine glass shape has two varieties, wider bottom and a more tapered bottom and finally a large round bottomed glass with a rim to match.

Why do we need all these glasses ?

As the box shows, each glass has a good reason for its existence. Since wines have different characteristics it is logical to use a glass which complements the wine and helps you best appreciate the wine and its special character.

The most important factor is how much air gets mixed with the drink. Since this liquid is trapped in a bottle for a while (sometimes a long long while) when it is exposed to air, it reacts with the oxygen in the air. This is oxidization of the wine. Some wines we want oxidized and others we don’t.

Typically the wines that have been hanging around inside the bottle for a long time could do with more oxidization. Therefore the larger glasses come in to play. White wines have a crisper flavor and unless you are drinking a mature chardonnay it makes sense to use the white wine glasses with the shape to hold the flavor.

Similarly champagne flutes are meant to hold off the mixing of air with the drink and therefore have a peculiar shape.

There are of course two schools of thought here, those who think the shape of the glass does not really make too much difference to oxidization and those who swear by it. So, whichever school of thought you might belong to, it is good to know the basis on which you can then build your arguments.

Let’s talk for a minute of the particular characteristics of the glass itself, not the shape. The thinner ones called crystal glass are made with lead content, this makes the glass sparkle (due to higher refractive index)  also the addition of lead or other minerals gives a little strength to the glass thus enabling the manufacturers to make them very thin (this of course makes them delicate). The minerals in the finish of the glass make the surface rough – not enough to be felt by the human hand – this lets the liquid in the glass oxidize better. 

Therefore there might be a leaning towards crystal glassware for wine. This of course comes down to your ability to manage crystal glass in your kitchen.

And now we come to the decanter. Here again there is some debate on whether it is needed or not. Earlier it was used to leave sediments of the wine inside the bottle and pour the liquid in to the decanter where it could breathe (get oxidized) and then be served elegantly from the decanter. If nothing else then just for the aesthetic value I would say get a good decanter and use it. Of course use it judiciously and only to age mature wine which needs to breathe before it can be sipped.

Decanters come in lovely shapes and I have seen these available at most stores selling good glassware in Bangalore. Some decanters have lovely stoppers or lids but do be aware that stoppering it will prevent it from breathing some more.  

Well, finally, whatever the glass the point is to enjoy the wine and the whole experience. 

Why Wine ?

Why do people drink wine or even why they should choose to drink wine, let’s try and take a peek in to that over here.

There are a number of good reasons that one can have and I have heard these trotted out quite often, let me try and list them down before digging around a bit.

Personally, I think all of these and any others you may have heard are all perfectly valid reasons to be drinking wine (or anything for that matter)

Interestingly though wine drinking in India is certainly on the up. There are now more and more Indian brands coming in to the market. A few years ago all we had was Grovers in Karnataka and Sula in Maharashtra and then there was Golconda which also came in (OMG) plastic pouches.

So, if you are casting about for a way to while the evening away with friends, wine certainly can be a good place to start.

For me, I started the wine appreciation journey when I was doing a sales job in the UK. There was so much talk around wine and a lot of it sounding very interesting with words such as terroir coming up that I was intrigued. It took me at least 2-3 years to actually develop a taste for it.

Then I happened to spend 6 months in the US by myself and that’s when I got an opportunity to really explore how my taste buds reacted to different wines. It was largely Californian wines that I tasted while there, however I got myself a decent basic education on some of the more popular grapes.

But, I digress, coming back to the why.

For some reason I see wine being perceived as a ladies drink in India and not just white, even red. Well, I am not complaining, makes for very pleasant company to be sharing wine with J. I think it might seem very un-macho to be drinking wine when you could be having scotch. Even more so when all around you are folks guzzling in the hard stuff and probably calling you a wimp, telling you to get a real drink.

But really I don’t see the point in drinking anything merely for the alcohol content. Even if you are the scotch drinking kind (and there is a lot of highbrow talk there too) please do so because you have a taste for it.

Of course the secret to the math in the picture is that you are served only 80 ml of wine at a time usually and therefore the total alcohol entering your body is much less than if you are drinking old monk, but we were talking percentages above.

Wine is certainly making steady progress and appearing on more menus. A couple of years ago most evening dos where you had alcohol served, wine was excluded but nowadays it is part of the default list, which is quite heartening.

Coming back on track again, well frankly it does not matter does it.  Let us flip it and say why not. It is a very nice drink, it is a conversation starter, it tastes very good, there are so many different varieties of them that you can keep discovering more and more. Only pity is that it is a bit harsh on the old wallet. This is so in India thanks to the taxes our government chooses to levy on imported wine. But with Indian vintners getting their act right it should become more affordable. A Big Banyan or a Vindiva bottle is usually priced around 700 INR or less. Both these brands make really palatable wine.

The only bad thing about this is that once you open the bottle you need to finish it. There is no good foolproof way to store red wine at home without it going bad. So, you need company at most times to open a bottle of red, that’s not really such a bad thing after all.

Coming back one last time to why or why not, I would say whatever your reason go for it. If you are looking to make it a conversation starter I will surely provide you with a lot of good material here. All you need to do is visit once in a while and read the posts. Soon we will have you talking about the Pinot you really liked and how you think Beaujolais is actually like a juice rather than a wine etc.

Do bear in mind as you start on this wonderful journey that wine is an acquired taste, it is not something our palettes are used to, especially if you are like me and have grown up with chutney and sambar. So give it time, don’t go for anything more than a couple of years old in the beginning, give a shot at white and pink ones before diving full-on in to the reds.

There is a lovely wide world to be discovered but it takes time and patience, do that and you will be truly rewarded with the joy of discovering some wonderful red wines. 

My current favorite grape: the Malbec

In this post I am going to talk about my current favorite grape. The Malbec. 

But, before we go there it might be useful to know the exact relationship between a grape and the wine that uses the same name. In short, wines which take their names from a particular grape are required to have that one type of grape contributing to the large majority of the wine in that bottle. 

Examples of this are wines such as Merlot, Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Pinot Noir etc.  
Well, you ask so what kind of a grape is Bordeaux. That brings us to the complex art or science of naming wines. 

Presenting, in the Red corner, a small table showing how wines are named. 

Wines are either named by the area they come from or by the grape that goes in to making in that particular wine. Typically European wines (called old world wines) bear the name of the area rather than the grape. For instance a Bordeaux comes from the Bordeaux region of France. There are 6 types of grapes that can go in to making a Bordeaux. Different chateaus and vintners have their own combination for making their Bordeaux wines. 

The names that are based on grapes are of two types, varietals and blended. Varietals are wines where one type of grape contributes to at least 75% (in some countries 85%) of the wine. This is a legal requirement to call the wine by the name of that particular grape. A Blended wine is of course made by blending more than one type of grape in to the wine, ex a Shiraz-Cabernet which we see quite often on Indian shelves. 

Personally I don’t think you can say one is superior to the other each of the two approaches produce the usual complement of good, bad and ugly wines. Incidentally France has a more complicated naming system than others and knowing that system will help you figure out whether that wine will be to your taste or not, more on that later.

Now that we have established some basic ground rules of the naming system let us talk about the grape Malbec. 

Here is what Wiki has to say about it – 
Malbec (pronounced: [mal.bɛk]) is a purple grape variety used in making red wine. The grapes tend to have an inky dark color and robust tannins, and are known as one of the six grapes allowed in the blend of red Bordeaux wine. The French plantations of Malbec are now found primarily in Cahors in South-West France. It is increasingly celebrated as an Argentine varietal wine and is being grown around the world.

Argentinian

In India I have mostly seen Malbecs from Argentina and not really many from France. 
The last three Malbecs I have had, have all been amazing. Two of them were Argentinian and the third French. All three of them were full bodied, felt like it was a really mature wine.
It is the kind of wine that you can appreciate more once you have acquired a taste for full bodied wine. 

When you drink a lighter wine it is less viscous and does not seem to hold as much complexity in the taste as a full bodied wine would. A full bodied wine tastes like it is thicker (though actual viscosity might not be so) and gives you a sense of drinking something that is heavier in taste. 

French

By the way if you take a sip of wine and grimace and say this is not really sweet then I would suggest you steer clear of anything which says full-bodied, go for lighter wines. 

The French Malbec I mention above was the better of the three but by a thin margin. The other two were right up there. Incidentally I have also found Malbecs to be typically stronger (on the alcoholic hit scale) than most others. I have included pictures of the French and one of the Argentinian, don’t have a pic of the third though. 







So, in conclusion I would say, if you like your wine full-bodied and have developed a taste for it then close your eyes and go right ahead and order that Malbec from wherever you can. I have bought from Wine Society of India on occasion and have not been disappointed yet. The price point I have found of Argentinian Malbec in Bangalore has been in the ballpark of 1200 to 1500 INR.

Introducing - Desi Wine Fundaes

So, why another blog. Well frankly, I got this idea when one of my friends criticised a Facebook post of mine. That post was about pairing a particular red wine with Palak Rice. I know, I know what a brilliant idea and all that, but hold on to your adulation - allow me to tell you a little more.

Now, really, I know this is not something you would get to read in most places, so why not blog about my particular wine experiences and tastes.

I am no wine taster or a Sommelier, in fact I barely know the spelling of Sommelier and cannot be relied upon to get it right without spell check or a quick visit to dictionary.com. (because this browser suggested that I write 'smellier' instead :-) .

So I am not going to attempt remarks like a fruity palette with a whiff of this and a gentle rolling after taste of that.

I will make this as mundane a description of the wines I taste as I can possibly manage. I will also include what food accompanied it and the reader can choose to emulate or ignore. 

Most likely my descriptions will describe how I felt when I tasted the wine, i.e. an automatic Ahhh! escaped my lips when I had my first sip of the 2012 Malbec shown here.

Dear readers, I will make one assumption, for which I beg the pardon of some of you. I will assume that most of my readers (assuming there are some of course) are not necessarily aware of facts about wine such as AoC, vintage, varietal etc. and I will take some effort to explain these. 
Those who are already well aware can do one of two things, read and point out errors or better ways to describe or move on to the actual description of the wine in question.

Hopefully I will strike a chord with some readers.

I am starting this endeavor, having come back from an extended trip to the UK, where I had the opportunity, to taste multiple excellent wines, so please expect the first few posts to be short and kind of a little low touch. More of a reminiscing about some good wines I have tasted.

I promise, better quality photos and more interesting descriptions as I write more in the present. I also solemnly promise never to write too long a post. Which would be a fine place to end this description but - you probably need to know a little more of the perpetrators antecedents - here goes

• Life Long Vegetarian by choice more than anything else
• Been a teetotaler for the first 35 years of my life 
• Went through a residential MBA without touching the alcohol at all :-) 
• Really like food (as long as it did not move before it was cooked) 
• Like my wines Red mostly and with a little or more than a little body

And for those who have been dying to know, here is the dictionary.com definition of Sommelier

som·me·lier   [suhm-uhl-yey; French saw-muh-lyey] 

Noun, plural som·me·liers 

a waiter, as in a club or restaurant, who is in charge of wines.