When a wine tastes like an ‘old sari box’
From reels about wine etiquette in Marathi to no fuss events and welcoming communities, India’s wine enthusiasts are rewriting the rule book on wine, with a desi twist
Apart from sneaky sips from my parent’s wine glasses and surreptitious glugging of Christmas wine offered in church, my real tryst with wine began years ago at a swish wine bar in Mumbai. Millennials of a particular vintage will remember IVY, the very ahead-of-its-time chain of wine bars by Chateau Indage across the country in the noughties, which served Chateau Indage’s own brands and as well as imports from Australia and South Africa. IVY afforded us newbs a chance to try wine without burning a hole in our pockets, with simple, easy-drinking wines that paired well with salted potato chips and Indian snacks. Sadly, IVY and Chateau Indage, the company that ran it, went belly up in 2010. And with it, that initial enthusiasm I had for wine faded as I struggled to find a wine community that didn’t seem so intimidating and elitist.
Later, when picking a career in F&B demanded a basic knowledge of wine, I found myself unable to connect with the complex tasting notes and jargon that seemed to dominate wine culture. Lately though, that seems to be changing. A number of wine experts are emerging across the country, armed with world-class degrees and a palate tuned to the flavours of home.
One of these evangelists is Tarini Kumar, the founder of Wine in a Million, a no-frills wine community started in Bengaluru in 2023. “We wanted to give people the chance to determine their own relationship with wine and create a safe space that welcomed not just wine enthusiasts but the wine curious," says Kumar. A certified wine aficionado who spent years in Bordeaux, France, learning about wine, Kumar says she knows what it’s like to be excluded from the conversation “just because one doesn’t know how to describe a taste in the most traditional way." Last year, Kumar was instrumental in the setting up of Wine in Progress (WIP), possibly India’s coolest wine bar yet, located in the Conservatory in Bengaluru. When I visited WIP some months ago, I was pleasantly surprised by the large selection of wines offered by glass, a practice that allows wine curious folks to broaden their palates. The bar staff shared a cool camaraderie, R&B played through the speakers and no one fussed about which glass to pair my wine with. In a move that would’ve shocked many wine purists, my server refilled the same glass I was using for white wine, with red wine, when I asked to try another bottle.
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Others are going the no-fuss way too. Bar consultancy Countertop’s No Snob Tasting Instagram series, beverage consultant Karina Aggarwal’s wine tasting reels and Super Juice’s laidback wine tastings are all about equipping drinkers with the right amount of information to make easy wine choices. Mumbai restaurant The Table has hosted Vinopedia, a monthly wine tasting concept, for years with sommelier Nikhil Agarwal sharing the same goal of making wine more accessible.
Of course it helps that the Indian wine industry has come of age. Last year, Sula, India’s most successful wine company, completed 25 years and Chandon India celebrated a decade in India with the launch of CHANDON Aurva, their first still red wine made from Shiraz grapes at their winery in Nashik.
As a consumer, it’s never been easier to drink good wine in India. Thanks to importers such as BrindCo and Monika Alcobev, WinePark, India’s first e-commerce website for wines that champions family-owned wine producers, and award-winning homegrown labels by Grover, Fratelli and Krsma, opportunities to drink good quality wine in India are aplenty. Plus, Chateau Indage is making a comeback, signalling an exciting chapter for the country’s wine scene.
In an attempt to champion India’s wine scene, a few years ago, Sonal Holland, India’s only master of wine launched India Wine Awards, now the India Wines and Spirits Awards (IWSA). While the wine awards (for which I served jury duty in 2019 ) have helped spotlight more unique wines, Holland’s personal approach to wines is one of inclusivity. One scroll through her Instagram account will showcase a range of wine content in English, Hindi and Marathi on everything from how to open a wine bottle to wine terminology. India is the third largest alcohol market in the world, and Holland’s idea to “make drinking a pleasurable art surrounding appreciation and enjoyment" is one she takes seriously. Recently, she announced the launch of Holland House, in partnership with Taj Ama Stays & Trails, a luxurious homestay offering wine experiences in Nashik.
After a two-year multidisciplinary master’s programme in wine tourism that spanned France, Spain and Portugal, wine educator and consultant Shalini Singh returned to Bhopal in 2024 to bring her enthusiasm for wines to her hometown. “Having travelled and lived in different countries, what I’ve learned is that regular drinkers everywhere do not know much about things like flavour pairing and which glass to use. And that is fine. Wine is supposed to be enjoyed on an everyday basis, not studied," she says. A champion of the “Indian nose and palate", Singh pushes attendees of her workshops and events to dig into their own personal lexicons to describe tasting notes. A glance through her tasting notes will reveal notations such as “my grandmother’s old sari box" for a tangy, pungent wine or “her father’s cupboard" for a bottle that had hints of tobacco. “As Indians, we are raised with such a wide range of flavours, aromas and fragrances that we can pick up what many others do not have a reference for."
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Singh sees this as an opportunity to change how Indians perceive wine and pairings. “Very often, an international sommelier will pair an Indian curry with a sweet or acidic wine to douse the spice quotient. But Indians don’t want to douse the spice, they want to savour it. Per Singh, who spent the lockdown pairing her wine collection at home with aloo paratha and sabzis, the opportunity for wine experts who understand a desi palate is huge right now.
All it takes for India to start drinking more wine, according to Singh, is a little imagination. If we can unlock our own identity and wine culture that’s rich with familiar references, we can make wine truly our own. I’ll drink to that.
Word of Mouth is a monthly column on dining out and dining well. Smitha Menon is a food journalist and the host of the Big Food Energy podcast. She posts @smitha.men on Instagram.
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