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.