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7 Best Indian Wines You Must TryAnoothi Vishal | Updated: June 23, 2016 15:46 ISTTweeterfacebookGoogle Plus RedditRelated VideosNapa, a wine countryAditya goes down the memory lane in SanawarRhone wine regionThe good thing about writing on wine in a country which is still a nascent market is that one gets to revisit the shelf again and again to see how things are coming along. Thus, what would pass as a strong habit, bordering on addiction, can be underwritten as an earnest effort to merely keep oneself well informed of what’s happening in the wine world. We still don’t have the concept of vintage in India, which means that even the top wines will more or less taste similar, no matter which year they are made in. Part of the reason for this is that we don’t store wines long enough to see a marked difference show up, but the other reason is that very few wines are made in a manner to exhibit individuality over uniformity. Nevertheless, the quality of wine produced in India has been going up steadily over the years, as wineries get better at what they do.
Here then are my top picks of red wines – some are properly cellar-worthy while others will pack a mean punch wrapped in a silken glove. With all of them, I recommend decanting for a good part of an hour (if not two) before serving.A big brooding boisterous red, the kind that makes steaks melt. The fruit is present but sits beneath the oak which impart rich chocolate-coffee-toasty primary notes. With a name like Chêne (French for oak) one wouldn’t expect anything else.A very complex reserved wine, layered and structured. This wine needs decanting —minimum 2-3 hours but if you can manage 4-5, even better — and then it evolves into an elegant full-bodied wine.A very drinkable fruity red wine with body and length. This grape is India’s rising star and KRSMA does a good version, fruity and yet with some spiced richness.The only Tempranillo exploit out of India, and one good enough to take on Spanish Rioja. If this is a sign of things to come, Tempranillo stands to become a big Indian superstar.
A very drinkable wine, absolute crowd-pleaser. The first red wine that put India on the world wine map. Michel Rolland was crucial in helping put this Shiraz-Cabernet wine together. It’s made in both our winemaking states but, as always, prefer the Bangalore-origin stock over Nashik.The most iconic red in India, one that definitely ages well. Cabernet normally doesn’t do great in Indian soils but this one is quite the anomaly. Also available in Magnums which will age even better.A juicy floral-fruity red wine with intense berry-spice notes. The oak is gentle and never masks the fruit. Again, this winery is paving the way for Malbec to become an Indian staple.A red that shows an impressive breadth of flavours but not heavy or daunting at all. Mostly Shiraz but also Cabernet, the philosophy for this blend is guided by one simple principle: only the best estate wines go into it.Another serious and worthwhile expression of Cabernet Sauvignon (I already mentioned that India generally makes below average Cabernet S.).
This is a balanced wine, decent fruit and then honed further with barrel ageing.A good expression of Syrah with plenty of fruit on the nose and palate. There have been some inconsistencies somewhere along the road but the wines are always well above average.One very well-priced Reserve-level balanced wine with nuanced complexity.
guide to buying french wineIt drinks well straight out of the bottle (as in no need to decant, not that you can give the bottle lip service).
cheap red wine in the philippinesProceeds from the sale of this wine go to charity, in case you need another reason to go for it.
wine gift boxes for shippingBecause somewhere in India there is always a Sula being opened, safest to make it a Rasa then.
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Pairing wine with Indian food is simple, right? A lightly sweet Riesling, a spicy curry, end of story. Or maybe that's just part of the story... Nine times out of ten if you ask a sommelier what wine goes with Indian food, the answer will be an off-dry white. It's not a bad answer—if you're talking about a spicy curry, for example. But Indian cuisine, like Chinese cuisine, is about as far from homogenous as you can get. Kashmiri cooking is different from Keralan cooking, both are different from what you might find in Kolkata in Bengal, and so it goes. So saying that a lightly sweet Gewurztraminer is ideal with Indian food is about as nonsensical as saying, "Chardonnay goes great with American food." At the acclaimed restaurant Babu Ji in New York's East Village (where I had the best Indian meal I've had in ages), chef Jessi Singh and wine consultant Jorge de Yarza (who has his own superb Basque place, Donostia, a few blocks away) have thought a lot about this. As Singh says, "I try to feature the whole of India on my menu.
One dish from the west, a couple from the south, a couple from the north, a few from the east." Singh's Gol Gappa, a hollow, crackling-crisp ball of poori bread, filled with tamarind chutney, yogurt and spices is indicative of his cooking. Eating it—you pop it in your mouth in one bite—is like having a flavor-piñata explode on your tongue. "If you want to give someone a crash course in Indian cuisine, you give them this," Singh says. "It's a street snack, and comes from Upper Pradesh. Whenever anyone in my family dies we take their ashes to this one town in Upper Pradesh. The priests keep a ledger of the family—our ledger goes back 800 years. This town's tradition is to make their gol gappa with yogurt. It's so nice—creamy, crunchy, sweet, spicy, sour." This is a dish that a lightly sweet wine actually works with. De Yarza says, "With the gol gappa you get that citrusy, minty, yogurt, sweet-spice mix. The Theo Minges Kabinett Riesling that we have on the list almost tastes like a deconstructed margarita.
It's a fun combo with those snack food flavors." Singh's Punjabi Kadhi, a dish of cauliflower fritters in a tangy, turmeric-inflected yogurt curry, has an entirely different flavor profile. "Kadhi is a staple dish of my home. We had ten buffalos, so we'd make our own yogurt, and my mom would take the yogurt and keep it three or four days to let it get more sour. You add some lemon juice, add turmeric and chickpea flour, and cook it for seven or eight hours." For the Kadhi, Yarza pours a Chardonnay from France's Jura region. "The kadhi has a beautiful sourness, so it needs more weight," he says. "A structured, savory white is ideal." Singh enjoys the way his menu darts all over the Indian subcontinent: "I love Chinese-Indian cuisine—Chinese refugees in Calcutta created it over 100 years ago. I always have two or three things that represent that tradition, like Chinese noodles with Indian spice, or Mumbai spring rolls, with green mango, carrots and shredded meat. The prawn coconut curry on our menu is mostly Keralan;
it's very simple, with no other spice than fresh curry leaves, which don't overwhelm the flavor of the prawns. The yogurt kebab we do, that's from Lucknau: Awadhi cuisine, the cuisine of the Moghul rulers of that region. They were into poetry and food and architecture and music; they used to feed their goats gold leaf thinking that it would make the goats taste like gold. It's a very flavorful, rich, creamy cuisine. Our beef curry is southern Indian, bay leaves, pepper, cardamom—that's a spicy curry." (De Yarza pairs it with a California Grenache from Beckmen Cellars.) "The Moghuls ruled India for nearly a thousand years," Singh continues. "They brought hung yogurt, and beets; dried seeds and nuts. But you've also got the influence of the French in Pondicherry, the Portuguese in Goa—vindaloo, which classically is pork cooked in vinegar and spices—comes from the Portuguese influence. Farsi refugees in Mumbai and Delhi; the Sri Lankan influence; and the spice route influence, Thailand.