Why foreign women and wine have a bad reputation in India - Part 2

Now -or if not check this out - you know why foreign women have a bad reputation in India. The reason, basically, is ... Bob Dylan

But what about wines? 

Why is everyone so adamantly – and wrongly for that matter –convinced that Indian wines are disgusting?

Goa.

Again. I know, it is starting to get nerve wrecking.

The city of sin has done it one more time.

The reason why Goa is at the center of the international despise towards wine is not because Hippies used to produce wine along their hashish plantations.

Neither is it because Saint Xavier and the Portuguese Inquisition viciously pored wine on the wounds of the poor Hindus they had just scorched.

The reason is much simpler. 

And not as entertaining unfortunately for you (and for this site’s bounce rate).

But first, let me take you through a little history:

Experts believe the grape vine was introduced in India from Persia around 2500 BC as wine is mentioned in the Vedic texts as Soma and Sura. Throughout the middle-ages and modern times, wine was the drink of warrior castes (the Kshatriyas), along with beer and other spirits made of wheat, barley or maize in the North and rice in the South.

The Mughal emperors developed and maintained vineyards in the Deccan region as did the British during the 19^th century.

However, almost all of India’s vineyards were wiped out by phylloxera in the 1890’s. 

After the independence, the Indian Constitution strongly deterred the consumption of alcoholic beverages and imports were severely monitored. These principles were expanded with the graduate prohibition of imported alcoholic beverages throughout the country and the introduction of constraint licensing under the control of the Central Government.

Despite these heavy constraints some areas continued to produce wine such as the state of Goa where vintners used ‘Bangalore Blue’ grape to make cheap wines.

Now this is the interesting part for us.

Bangalore blue wine has the status of wine, it has its color, its alcoholic content and its name.

But that’s about it. All other similarities are pure fantasy. Some say even drunkards don’t appreciate it and that its sole purpose is to get you wasted. And it succeeds in doing it very nicely.

The problem is that Goan wine was basically the only wine available in India for 25 years. So of course people now believe Indian wine means cheap, yuky, undrinkable grape juice.

But that is far from the truth. 

As I explained it in a previous article about selling wine in India, Indian wineries have developed throughout the 1990’s and 2000’s and now produce some very decent wines. It all started out with Indage – known as Champagne India now – who built a first winery in the valley of Nashik in 1985. From then on, other players stepped into the wine industry and wineries continued spreading in the valley of Nashik, Maharashtra. There are up to 65 wineries in the state of Maharashtra today, producing Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Chenin, Zinfandel and even Viognier. 

I tasted wines I actually enjoyed very much here. Like Sula Dindori or Nine Hills Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve. Actually, I was even surprised at the level of achievement of these wines. 

I'm not saying they are perfect but they surely are enjoyable with a nice curry masala dish. 

Here's one of my tasting note for Nine Hills, Chenin, 2009

Nose: nice fruity tanginess. Orange, passion fruit and pineapple. 

Mouth: the structure is really straightforward. The wine doesn't drop in the mouth, its crisp yet full and the length is good. 

Overall this is a very easy wine to enjoy. Perfect for beginners in wine drinking because the fruitiness is really appealing to the palate. 

So you see, its like I explained it in my previous article, there's a misconception about Indian wine. 

In the same way as Goan based westerners don’t walk about naked smoking hash and pot all day anymore, Indian wine is not the low-quality grape juice it used to be. 

Yet they still suffer the reputation Goan history has cursed them with. Shame. 

Selling wine in India

Some of you might know this already, but I have left France to go to Mumbai for the summer.

This explains the lack of posts lately.

I am working for a French company selling Indian grown wine in the West region of India (Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa mainly) for 3 months.

What’s interesting about this mission is that wine in India is only nascent. So I’ll be at the vanguard of any further development for wine in a country whose population should outgrow China’s by 2030.

To tell you the truth, wine is only at its premises here: although Indian wineries have emerged as soon as in the 1980’s (Château Indage) and developed in the mid 90’s (Sula), the local population is still very far from having the reflex of drinking wine when they go out for dinner.

For most Indians, there are no such things as varietals and wine is only red or white. Women are still very reticent to drinking any alcoholic beverage whatsoever.

And men … well they prefer whiskey.

So you can imagine that the quality of Indian wines has long been the least of Indian producers’ worries…

Thus, education and tasting opportunities during weddings or banquets will probably be the only means to carve in Indians’ minds that wine is not a drink whose sole purpose is to be mixed with orange juice (true story) in order to make cocktails.

The higher classes are starting to get more and more interested in wines, although they are focusing on international brands for now. The trouble with imported wines though is that they are submitted to very heavy levies. For instance a bottle of Moet champagne which revolves around 28 euros in France would be 118 euros here.

Ouch.

India has been part of the WTO sine 2007 but when you see that imported spirits are taxed at more than 250% you understand why Europe and the US are regularly in dispute with India.  

I’ll try posting when I can, although my days are pretty packed.

I’d like to let you know about my experience here, with a main focus on wines of course but I will also certainly just talk about living in Mumbai and getting accustomed to the Indian life style.

Next post will be about my first Indian wedding…

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