Serving English wine at UK diplomatic functions could help "oil the wheels of Brexit negotiations", an MP has said.Conservative Nusrat Ghani is calling on the Diplomatic Service to offer homegrown bottles "where possible" to help promote the UK's image abroad.She told MPs that the UK was "missing opportunities" in countries such as Japan, India, China and Singapore where wine consumption was increasing.Some 44% of wine drunk at government events in 2015 was English or Welsh.Ms Ghani, whose Wealden constituency in Kent is home to a number of England's 133 wineries, has presented a ten-minute rule bill to Parliament which would give English firms greater presence at high-profile ambassador's receptions around the world. She told MPs that the English wine industry, which produced five million bottles last year, could compete with the best from across Europe despite its relatively small size. Domestic firms, she said, were now official suppliers to Downing Street while she believed that the Queen served English sparkling wines at state banquets.

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"Article 50 is on its way and this could be seen as the first post-Brexit bill," she said. wine good for back pain"As we leave the EU we must grasp every opportunity to find new markets for our products around the world and be imaginative in supporting them."best books italian wineI look forward to the very best of our wines creating a splash in Paris, Berlin, Madrid and Rome for that matter and perhaps helping to oil the wheels of the Brexit negotiations to come."best wine deals xmas 2015Her bill got an unopposed first reading in the Commons but is unlikely to become law unless it is adopted by the government - ten-minute rule bills are generally used to raise the profile of an issue rather than precipitate legislation. buy wine gift vouchers

According to the most recent statement by the Government Hospitality wine cellar, published by the Foreign Office, the cellar contains over 33,000 bottles of wines and spirits, with a total value of £809,990. English and Welsh wine were the most commonly served in 2015-6, making up 44% of the total consumed.Photo by Gaar Adams Each Friday, Roads & Kingdoms and Slate publish a new dispatch from around the globe. For more foreign correspondence mixed with food, war, travel, and photography, visit their online magazine or follow @roadskingdoms on Twitter. NASHIK, India—Late last month, LVMH—the French luxury conglomerate responsible for Louis Vuitton, Fendi, and Bulgari—threw a major, booze-soaked high fashion event. But instead of the customary champagne-filled soiree in a European castle, LVMH gathered Bollywood’s best to celebrate their subsidiary, famed champagne house Moët & Chandon, in a lavish Mumbai hotel. The unusual occasion—a launch party for their foray into the fledgling world of Indian wine.

Indians rank among the lowest wine consumers in the world. Even though the industry has blossomed in the last decade, growing from six to 50 domestic wineries, persistent social stigmas hamper further progress. Only a third of Indians drinks alcohol; those who do like to stick to harsh, local Indian spirits. In spite of these challenges, a wine industry thrives on the gentle sloping hills of the Maharashtra region, near the Hindu holy city of Nashik. For centuries, these hillsides have nurtured microclimates with hot days, cool nights, and reliable rainfall ideal for table grapes. But India has only recently tried to cash in on its potential as a South Asian Little Tuscany. In the shadows of Mumbai’s skyscrapers, workers clocking out from a dairy factory duck into a grungy neighborhood bar. Here, local “whiskey” reigns supreme—distilled from molasses and smelling like varnish, it’s the only thing on tap. Before I can pull up a stool, a toothless man hands me a glass.

Soon, nine new friends cluster around, and I bring up the subject of wine. Only one person has ever tried it. He makes a face and says, “Too sour.” For the enthusiast looking to get serious about Indian wine, the unquestioned first stop is Sula Vineyards. Here in 1993, Rajeev Samant, a Stanford-educated Silicon Valley dropout, returned to his family’s humble estate to explore why the region’s profitable table-grape industry had never expanded to include wine grapes. Six years later, he planted the country’s first sauvignon blanc and chenin blanc grapes. From the paltry initial batch of 1,000 liters, Sula has grown into an empire producing 6 million liters of nearly two-dozen varietals in 2012. The 35-acre estate has two restaurants, an outdoor bar, and a 32-room resort. I admire Samant’s ambitious effort to try to jump-start wine tourism in India. But as I sit down to dinner at Sula’s Indian restaurant, I watch the two men seated next to me look at the menu perplexed, then order coconut juice.

When the waiter informs them that coconut juice is not on the menu, they both order local Indian whiskey instead. Photo by Gaar Adams This is the market battle Sula has waged for more than a decade. The best hope for wineries like Sula is to lure some of India’s 300 million whiskey consumers away from the varnish-liquor. But that is no small task: Eight out of the 10 best-selling whiskeys in the world are from India, with most of them only sold domestically. The waiter begrudgingly places the men’s order but not before a bit of gentle ribbing. “Why don’t you walk to a wine shop for that whiskey!” the waiter teases. In working-class restaurants in India, BYO-whatever is customary. The words wine shop in the West might conjure images of sleekly minimal design, but the reality in India is quite different. Wine shops are dusty, government-run affairs that dole out whatever they have in stock—usually some concoction of fermented molasses. Though challenges abound, converting die-hard whiskey drinkers into wine drinkers may be in the best interest of all of India.

As the country continues to guzzle booze made popular under colonialism, the sugarcane factories that supply its molasses continue to deplete the country’s water resources. While introducing more sustainability into India’s farms, the Nashik region’s vineyards also aim to prop up a steady, long-term industry by cultivating a fruit with an ancient history. Education and marketing are the best hopes in the uphill battle to get Indians to drink wine. I meet Prashant Bhalerao, a hospitality manager, as he is finishing a tour and pulling glasses to do a tasting for a married couple visiting from Andhra Pradesh. As he pours a glass of his award-winning sauvignon blanc, his eyes light up. He patiently teaches the couple how to hold their glasses and thoughtfully responds to questions like, “Which white and red do you mix to get rosé?” But he starts to lose the visitors as we move on to sample the reds. Grimaces and trips to the spittoon abound. Bhalerao asks the husband, as he spits a shiraz.

“It tastes like cough medicine,” the man replies. While Sula boldly declares itself to be “at the forefront of the Indian wine revolution,” smaller wineries like York, just a few hills over, have to produce a particular blend to suit Indian taste: That means sweet. “Wine in India has two problems: People like to get drunk, and people like sugar,” Vishal Mahajan, a former winemaker from Sula tells me. Leaning against a balcony overlooking an unpretentious 6-acre estate, we taste York’s late-harvest chenin blanc. York produces far less wine than their neighbors down the road, but sipping on their saccharine chenin, with its notes of guava and a lingering taste of honey, it’s clear that they’re playing to the base.  As we pour another glass, I ask Mahajan about the darker of India’s two alcohol vices—a propensity for drinking too much. “I’ve heard some wineries talk about increasing the alcohol volume to 20 percent,” Mahajan says. With the Indian liquor market releasing special editions of high-alcohol booze, the wine industry is feeling the pressure to compete.

As we leave the tasting room, one sommelier shows us a Marathi meme floating around the Internet. It states that it takes an hour of drinking wine to speak English but only a few minutes of local whiskey to accomplish the same task. “At university, our parties only had whiskey. Maybe only 5 percent of the people knew about wine,” the sommelier laughs. A member of India’s glut of MBA graduates, he hopes to help expand the country’s drinking frontiers. About 20 miles south, near the serene Mukhne Dam, I meet two young winemakers, Sanket Gawand and Asmita Pol, at Vallonné Vineyards. Founded in 2009, Vallonné produces a fraction of the wine made by other vineyards. “We want to be known as India’s premier boutique winery,” Pol says. With a lower percentage of contract farming than other area wineries, Vallonné is able to keep a more watchful eye on their crop rather than deploy viticulturalists to check on far-flung farms. A small upstart, Vallonné has the freedom to make bold choices—like experimenting with different oak barrels, a risk for such a small crop.

But who is their market?We pursue what we like and what we want,” Gawand smiles. The youth may be the most promising target for India’s nascent wine industry, but the lingering concern among the homegrown wineries is what effect the introduction of foreign names—like the sparkling wine of Moët & Chandon—will have on domestic production. India’s young people have a huge appetite for luxury products, but it’s unclear whether they like luxury products made in India. “Chandon might push some wineries out of the market. Or it might make the world finally pay attention to wine in India,” Mahajan says. Moët & Chandon’s sparkling wine launch certainly perked up the local industry—it was no coincidence that one winery released its first brut and Sula re-launched its own sparkling wine with a new blend and new packaging one week prior to the French powerhouse’s splash into the Indian market. But the market can be fickle. In June 2008, the New York Times ran a glowing article about the rise of Indian wine.