‘Indian winemakers must pay attention to details’

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: Andrea Valentinuzzi, Winemaker, Synthesis SN Cdivalentinuzzi A&C

He is still to see the Taj Mahal, the dream destination of every foreigner and almost every Indian. That aside, Andrea Valentinuzzi, Italian winemaker who is in India to supervise the making of Vintage Wine’s Reveilo wines, has seen nearly all the vineyards in the country and in the journey to get there, has seen India in select cities and the villages. It is the wide disparity that he sees between them that has him dazed. “I get off at the airport and the first thing I see is the crowds. On the roads, pedestrians move cheek-by-jowl with vehicles and there are animals too. It is a bizarre sight at first,” he says, laughing. “I wonder how the drivers get their vehicles across. Surprisingly there are no angry voices or fights.” Now, is he sure about that? “At least not the kind I see back home in Italy.”

India was on Valentinuzzi’s mental radar for a long time, especially since he had traversed across continents except Asia. “Our picture of India is from books and old stories. It was when I met Yatin Patil (director, Vintage Wines) that I realised that there are several religions here and cultures too. I was a bit amazed to see the shy ways of the village girls in the vineyards and the bold, fashionably dressed girls in the cities. India lives differently in its cities and villages, I realised.”

With Indian wines becoming a popular industry, what are his views on it? “The wine industry here has grown in the last three to four years. When I first came, the wines I sampled tasted of sweet oxidised fruit juice. The wines in different bottles of the same vintage tasted different. That is a challenge that the industry has to overcome.”