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Would sir like to try the pin nott?
 I've
just spent a few days in India doing some photography for the
NFIS website. I had some
Indian restaurant meals with the people I was working with during the day, but
usually worked through and most evenings my meal was taken in the hotel dining
room. Dining alone made tasting more than a couple of dishes and wines seem
excessive but I needed to try new things so I did my best (helped by the fact
that the prices were very cheap). After work, I'd drink a cold Kingfisher beer,
but with dinner I felt like wine.
Most of the wine on their lists was imported (French and a
little Australian and Chilean), but there were some local Indian wines. I
started at the top of the 'Indian by the glass' list and then realised that the
waiter would open anything I asked for as long as I was appreciative. And I was.
I'm sure in a side by side comparison the wines I drink here would show more
depth and character but they were all mostly very drinkable. And having to walk
as far as the lift to get 'home', I had a glass or two more than I would
normally. It only made the India musicals on the television in my room less
comprehensible.
Here are some of the better Indian wines that I made a note
of.
 Local
to me, at least when I was in Bangalore, was
Grover Vineyards, 40k
north of the city in the Nandi foothills. I was thrown a bit by the mispelling
of
clairette (a French grape variety I had to look up) as 'Clarette' on one
wine list.
Grover Viognier Clairette . I didn't know what clairette's taste characteristics
were, but the viognier was prominent. This was good enough to come back to on
the following evening.
Grover Vineyards 2005 La Réserve
(Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz blend) - very good. Best red I tried.
Flamingo Wines
Chenin Blanc 2004 - a little flat, maybe it would be better chilled more.
Mountain View Winery 2005 Sauvignon Blanc (see
the mountain view) -very good.
Sula Vineyards
2005? Chenin Blanc - also good.
There were also a few ordinary chardonnays I didn't note.
I was eating Southern Indian tandoor in Bangalore and Indian
influenced Chinese meals in Chennai (it's called "Indian Chinese" locally, tasty
but strange) and I tried mostly white wines. This seemed to concern one of the
waiters (there seemed to be at least three for my table) who asked if perhaps I'd like to
try the pin-nott? I did and I must have been surprised enough by the smoothness
and flavour not to write down the maker.
All the Indian wines are apparently produced to be immediately drinkable. They're a touch
sweet but they're aimed at not scaring off the local market, who usually dink
beer and whisky with their meals. They were not served quite as chilled as we
do. The pinot was room temperature warm (as so was the day).
 It
wasn't until November 2004 that the nation's capital Delhi, allowed the sale of imported
alcoholic beverages in retail liquor shops. Wine writer Alok Chandra in
his column in the Kolkata Business Standard newspaper lamented that "since retailing is monopolised by the state government, the average
liquor shop is still a squalid, crowded, dirty and poorly lit hole-in-the-wall
with surly attendants and badly displayed goods. ...Of course, since the chaps
manning the shops have absolutely no idea about wine or how to store it. I
shudder to think what will happen a few months down the line when temperatures
in Delhi rise to 30 degrees. This is a common problem almost everywhere in
India, where poor storage conditions result in oxidised or cooked wines (and we
blame the producer)."
If storing wine is hard, how do you grow grapes in tropical regions where
monsoons are the summer characteristic? A quote from a Wall Street Journal
article explains that they...
 "...grow
the grapes in the winter. Nashik (region) has long been famous for its table
grapes, and the local farmers know how to prune the vines a second time ahead of
the summer monsoon so that they are dormant through the hottest period of the
year. Then from October to March, the warm afternoons and cool nights
approximate the climate of, say, the Rhone in summer. The strong sun brings up
the sugar levels, but a chill down to about 7 degrees Celsius in the evening
brings out the subtler flavours of a wine made in a temperate region." And they
have to plant on a slope so the roots don't get waterlogged in the monsoon
rains.
Prices? The Grovers Viognier Clairette was Rs360 a bottle, about
$10 Australian. By comparison a bottle of Jacobs Creek 2005 Semillon Chardonnay
($10 here) costs twice that in India. There is a tariff of 264% on imported
wine! I never paid more than 100 rupees for a glass of wine. About $3.
Links and comments:
Although there's a predominance of English language publications available in
India and most online sites are English language, there's often a unique twist
to the language that you have to get used to ie.- "In terms of career graph, Mr.
Kewadkar shares a vivid work experience" and "Michel Rolland is a kinetic wine
consultant".
There's no giving of a gift, you get it as a verb - 'he gifted his son a new
guitar', 'Gift
your child a new computer' (and computer stores offer 'upgradisation' rather
than upgrades). There's also some post-colonial quaintness. Local gin and
whiskey are labelled 'India Made Foreign Liquor'. The Grover Vineyards front
labels all proudly (or is it for credibility?) state 'Made in Collaboration with
Mr Michel Rolland, Bordeaux, France'. Flamingo wines home page boasts they have
'Sha - a perfect mix of brix, acidity, flavour and aroma.'
Brix as you know is sugar content.
Grover Wines
press cutting
page is an insight into the Indian food and wine media, where other
lifestyle products are mixed in. 'Lifestyle'
is a big buzzword in modern India and adorns the shopping malls.
Sommelier India blog has a good
article on wine adoption in India
The Indian Wine website
has a list of 'Manufacturers' and other articles in Indian news sites on wine.
Gourmet India an
enthusiast's website (mostly about western dining places in India) where I found
this quote..
"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline; it helps if
you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very
least you need a beer." Frank Zappa
Of course in India there's
Kingfisher Airlines
to go with the beer.
And nuclear weapons.
(While I was in Bangalore, Kingfisher were launching the 2006
Bangalore Great Food Guide.)
Fred Harden 15 July 06
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 One
more frozen orange juice
It's been cold in our region, with a run of nights of minus
four or five. The one citrus tree that I've been able to coax through our
winters (and bear its first tiny lemons) has been knocked back again. I can
continue to go out and buy lemons of course but if you notice a delay in the
first of the releases of new season's navel oranges, it's because there have
also been extensive frosts in the usually warm Riverland and Murray Valley
regions.
Minus four is a magic temperature for fruit pulp freezing. If fruit has more
than five hours at that temperature, the internal freezing causes long term
damage. The sugar in mature fruit apparently acts as an anti-freeze and they
fare better. The valencia crop is some weeks away from picking (mid August) and
growers will be monitoring that closely.
The Australian Citrus Growers association
press release calls it "the worst frost event since 1982”. While the impact
over the next few weeks is assessed, the expected small (3%) increase in
production this year has been predicted to actually be a drop of 26%. in volume.
"Frosts have set in early this year across the citrus
growing areas of the Riverland, Murray Valley and Riverina. The Riverina has had
minimal damage due to prior rain. The Riverland and Murray Valley
regions have experienced severe conditions. This has slowed fruit picking and
packing rates for all markets,” AGC President Mark Chown said.
There's a
PDF on the ACG site showing what damage frost does and how to recognise it.
Fred Harden 4 July 06
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Of
Gullets and Gutter-Lane Do you remember the fuss about Robin Wickens
from Melbourne's