Some things are really good if you have history to back them and some are better off without too much baggage. So while many houses have to churn out good wine as did their ancestors they face the task of sticking to tradition and yet being contemporary. A young wine house on the other hand has less history than Brancaia would have perhaps, had the Widmer family notbought a summer house which came with a wime estate. Well they did buy in and also kept up the wine-making. Little did they know that their little activity around the house would turn into a full-time winemaking effort with wines that would soon go on to win some very coveted awards and be parked on some of the smartest and most suave dining tables of the world!
Well, more locally, and recently, it was good to see them parked on Indian tables. Martin Kronenbourg was in town recently to talk about the wine-house, the wines, his wife, Barbara, the winemaker and to not leave us high n’ dry, he served us a dozen of his top red, Il Blu, from vintages between 1994 and 2005, both included. The exercise was a first of its kind with Italian wines and a sure-shot crowd-puller. Trades-folk, scribes and some select consumers made space on their schedules to be there and taste the range along with the other iconic wines the Illatraia and the very affable (not to mention super-affordable), simply christened, Tre. And then there was Grappa as well but not the usual italian transparent stuff, think of it as Armagnac from Italy ? tinted, oak-rounded, a sweet sensation with bursts of fruit and character…in short, yummy!
Back to the Blu, the wine is a blend of Sangiovese, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon and the blend percentage is kept constant; lose that and you lose identity. Sure enough we will have differences of vintage i.e. the climatic effect on the grape quality each year, but outside of that, the wine mix would be more or less, constant. That is their belief.
Another interesting belief that Martin shared with us was that he preferred his super-babies being served a bit cool, say at 15 degrees, purely because it lowered the overpowering-to-some effect of the tannins and general headiness associated with rich corpulent reds. It was nice to hear a silent gasp in the crowd when he suggested decanting a full-bodied red wine in the same way as one makes a one-yard coffee (pour the wine with much splash into the carafe) and then sticking it in the fridge for a bit to cool it down. We know nothing about wines and yet the little we know we seem to defend with more alacrity than our own next of kin. Classic example of education ruining
You live you learn. Which would be a very modest way of summing up that glorious afternoon spent in the company of Martin, Vishal Kadakia of Wine Park (who will be getting us this wine), the best of Delhi’s F&B and some very tasty, poetry-inspiring grape philosophy.