I admit defeat if someone asks me what is the best wine. I am even further flummoxed when someone, whom I have only met and interacted with for a period even shorter than with the guy who delivered me pizza last night, asks me which wine would I suggest him to drink. It is akin to calling up a tailor and asking him to make you the best possible suit you will ever wear, without ever having measured you!

However, all is not lost. I have spent due and diligent time in the field and it is this experience that restrains me from commenting wildly on wine, or on individual likes and dislikes. However, it doesn?t mean that I am spineless when it comes to offering opinion.

In fact, I feel very strongly about wine lists?how they are written, compiled, laid out and priced?and today I will try to help you identify a good wine list. The problem is that India is a big country. This means we all have different cultural build up and hence different tastes and preferences. Which is why, a wine that is liked in one part with the local food may not be received so in another part. Hotels realise this essential intrinsic difference and hence do local speciality foods in every region, apart from a few international cuisine-based eateries. It would be rare to find a Bengali restaurant in the Taj Delhi. They may host a festival from time to time. It makes sense.

But when it comes to wine lists, hotels, most hotels, give it the beverage-list treatment?one size fits all.

Hotels employ a central committee to select wines for the entire chain and then allow importers to make these wines available throughout the country. It helps them as the individual properties don?t have to bother with choosing the right wines.

Here then are two problems. First and foremost, the importer is rarely capable of serving a country as large as ours. It would surmount to establishing a distribution network pan-Europe! Sure over time this may become possible, but a lot of good importers prefer to start small, stay local and establish themselves before venturing into newer markets. However, this policy of hotels is a bit of a Catch-22. To expand they need large sums of capital, which is not available to them?duty structures vary in each state and none is relenting or conducive?and they also need to have the experience and expertise to handle such far-spread logistics. Both these things are scant to a start-up. Sure they have passion and knowledge of the one region they wish to represent, but hotels are no emotional softies. They mean business, the centralised kind.

I can understand that ten years ago managers were uninformed and hence it made sense to follow such formats. Today, when the average hotel manager is a wine lover himself, it makes more sense to allow him to choose his own wines. It would be great to walk into a hotel and each time expect to be excited by something new that the team has managed to procure. That way, each city, each property would have its own signature style and wine list.

Another problem with common national wine lists is that, as with food, cultural differences make a wine lose relevance outside a particular region. To have a photocopy wine list is the most insensitive thing to offer by way of hospitality. But, sadly, that is what we have for the time and all big hotel chains work on this bland format. Painting an entire palette of emotions in a dull grey. Sure someone could try and break this centralised concept, but all are too busy counting the profits and apparently nobody wishes to truly see the trade grow.

But then, there are a few, smaller and hence quicker establishments that do a fabulous job. In times to come they will become the norm and the bigger corporate institutions will realise the folly of their initial ways. Here then, in no particular order, are three places that can blow a vinous mind with their fantastic wine lists. I raise my glass to all of them.

Hakkasan: Probably the first standalone to have a proper sommelier. He may be young but he does come with decent experience gained at the right places internationally and has a lovely affable attitude that puts one at ease. No intimidating drawls about vintages and the likes; just a very precise wine-list, fine-tuned to the food and our sensibilities, tactile and fiscal. It was a pleasure to see little finds like Torrontes and Albari?o, little white joys alongside Boutinot?s Rhone valley wines?all among my favourites?that are ever so rare to find on Indian hotel lists. Now that this little standalone has shown the way, I am sure the bulky 5-stars will follow suit, like the boring corporate herd that they are.

Four Seasons: Sorry, I said all that above. This hotel puts it all out of context. It is a breath of fresh air, not just in Bombay but for the entire country. The list is well appointed.

Aman hotel: What happened?! What went wrong!? People will always wonder, juxtaposing the enquiry with an exclamation. Such a mammoth of a resort-style property, bang in the centre of the district which, through its flamboyant living quotient, probably has financed more spas than the UNESCO has schools in Africa, and yet, it didn?t click with the swish set. Or the rich set. Or the corporate. Or the bohemian bourgeoisie. Anybody for that matter. It did click with me, and still retains its original charm. A wine cellar that is designed to make a vino squeal like a baby, the imposing sense of clean spaces, the tranquil silence perhaps the most refreshing thing to be found in a city hotel since the French left the Imperial hotel and went away, and prices ever so affordable for some very rare bottles of wines that were even specially made and bottled for this very property. When it comes to the exclusivity quotient, they have it bigger and better than anybody else. Pity then that the exclusivity extended to even their potential guests who chose to admire from a distance. The boutique champagnes, the lovely Spanish array of whites and reds, the Sherries?I could just go on. Even if the hotel is revamped, I will perhaps be the last person exiting, the last man standing, with glass in hand and a precious bottle besides. This is what a wine list should be that?s worthy of the capital of the world?s biggest democracy.

The writer is a sommelier