A recently concluded wine competition in India helped debunk several wine myths. As is expected of most such things, it also raised many a new question about the validity of such exercises.
Well, I for one don?t wish to tread that tricky path, not at least, for the moment. There was a panel of international palates put together by the affable and learned Robert Joseph of London, who is quite the wine-man himself. From Australia and New Zealand to Italy and USA, Robert had put together one most envious group. There was an Indian presence too and that is how I got to spend time with these international aficionados and learn so much from them. Here then, are the few valiant points that came to float.
Sweet wines are not always bad. Of all the wines tasted, the sweet ones are often the hardest to judge because everyone seems to like them generally. That and ros? are always tough to judge in an objective manner. They are also the wines which are more often swallowed than spat.
Indian wine still has a long way to go. Some of them may have won medals but it didn?t obliterate the fact that these wines generally suffer from the most basic of wine flaws ? from bad crop and poor vineyard management to serious faults in winemaking. The upside is that these defects are so large that they are hard to be missed hence identification and subsequent rectification can be easy. The more worrying aspect was why then hadn?t anybody done the good work and made the necessary changes to make these wines even remotely drinkable. And now, for those who have still read on ? New Zealand and Italy fared well as also did Australia. Portuguese wines too featured fairly high. The best red was a Shaw and Smith Shiraz from Australia and the overall white winner was an unexpected Gewurztraminer from Spy Valley, New Zealand. Champagne Devaux won in the sparkling category. On the Indian front, no wine won gold which wasn?t a surprise. It was however surprising that a few actually managed a silver medal and some a bronze. Most others got mere seals of approval. I am pretty sure that with the group I was moderating we did a good job of picking out and eliminating all signs of crappy red Indian Zinfandels from anywhere near the winners? camps. They were eliminated by unanimous vote.
The Grover?s red was one to win and that was expected. Two lesser expected wines were the Chateau d?Ori Cabernet blend and a Cabernet from Indus wines. The Indage sparkling wines (MdP and Ivy ? too won. Sula Blush Zinfandel and Nine Hills Shiraz ros? won in the pink category. Sula also won for their late harvest Chenin which further proves my initial observation that basically their reds are crap!
A parting message from the consortium of gathered winemakers was very clearly this ? India has potential as a winemaking country but they needn?t make the same mistakes as the rest of the world, they needn?t go through the same stages of formation as others before them did. Instead, they must adopt the best from the Old and the New World, focus on quality over quantity and evolve their own terroir-specific style of winemaking as opposed to imitating the rest of the world. Not all that tough but few seem to follow this for the moment.
The writer is a sommelier