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GO FOR WINE By Tara Narayan It's been a time of so many foodie discoveries that I don't where to begin! First there was this charming Pralhad Khadangale of vintage Maharashtrian-style. Don't ask me what I mean by that because I'm not sure myself except that it's a perfect description. The bluff yet knowledgeable Mr. Khadangale is a grape farmer and hails from the by now famous grape growing district of Nashik in Maharashtra. He's got 65 acres of land dedicated to growing grapes organically for wine and the wine from his Vinsura Vineyards or Sankalp Winery Pvt.Ltd. is some of the best all-Indian wine I've ever tasted. Hey, we're making some pretty decent wine nowadays in India and much of it from neighbouring Maharashtra is winning accolades abroad. Several of my friends running restaurants in the Aguada-Anjuna beach belt stock the Vinsura wines because they're not only good but also more affordable. I remember my Italian friend Sarjano (although I'm not sure if he's still my friend!) telling me that he stocks wines from Nashik in his garden restaurant called My Home out in Anjuna, basically Madera and Satteri (the first is Indian, the second actually imported from Chili and bottled here and therefore twice the price). I like both the wines though and ask for them whenever eating out. I've discovered that wine actually marries well with several kinds of Indian cuisine, especially Goan seafood fare and even with vegetarian food it's nice to have a good wine in the evening, my favourite usually being a red wine (no, never Goa's sweet port wine, this is good for cooking though). Listen, generally I hate the liquor industry for I think it has done more harm than good, and men are so silly they actually drink to get drunk and obnoxious. Plus, Goa being one of the country's popular holiday states and a drinking State offering fun, food and frolic in abundance...and liquor being reasonably priced and often complimentary... folk come here to drink and get drunk (from neighbouring Maharashtra, Karnataka, and of course Gujarat, even distant Punjab and West Bengal). Goa has a very special environment to facilitate boozing and even with local drinking ....(sigh)...there is a serious social problem. Ask my friend Kamal Baros of Alcohol Anonymous and he'll tell you some really hair-raising and heart-wrenching real life stories. Also in my observation I've found that many Indian tourists do not know that it's kind of asking for trouble to imbibe liquor and then go swimming or frolicking in sea or swimming pool (and safety systems are pathetic). In the first place of course one should not drink and go swimming or driving. No two views about that, please. GO FOR WINE AMONGST THE liquors I have a soft corner for wine, it's the most romantic of the liquors and perhaps the most recommended for health-watchers. Wine or "angoor ki beti" as the Hindi potboilers have it has been accepted as an aphrodisiacal drink since time immemorial. I occasionally like a gin and tonic but if I'm in a happy mood I always like to ask for a good red wine. Some say wine triggers off headaches, especially red wine (which has something called tyramine which is supposed to contract blood vesssels in a hurry), but I judge for myself...bad wine generally wakes me up in the morning with a granddaddy of a headache and feeling rotten! But good wine, sipped slowly through the evening, inspires no headaches. I must have consumed more than half a bottle of Mr. Khadangale's new Vinsura Zinfandel at the recent promotion evening at Fernando's Nostalgia restaurant (a restaurant which has grown up beautifully) in Raia, but despite the late night I woke up to rise and shine pretty happily the next morning. Vinsura's wines are all set to be available in golden Goa (where I do believe more and more discerning folk are taking to drinking wine rather than hard liquor) so ask for them, namely the Zinfandel and Sauvignon Blanc , a Chenin Blanc , Rose and Flora are also on the way. The specific grapes for these wines are grown by Mr. Khadangale on his farms. Interesting man from rustic farming stock. He smiled to a query and commented that his own family members including wife still wonder what his wine business is all about! There's a general moral distaste for "daru"! But speaking for himself, he has acquired a taste for wine over the years courtesy the boom in growing grapes for the table and then for bottling wine, the business of growing grapes and drying them into raisins has now further expanded into wine making for the returns are better on quality wine. Nashik's climate and soil is ideal for some perfect wines and the farmers have been savvy enough to make the most of these factors, he opines that the Indian market too is growing up, "Recent years have seen health-consciousness and people are moving from hard liquor to beer, and also wine. Actually country liquor is being rapidly replaced by beer in the urban areas..." In the last five or six years the metros have become conscious of wine and its health benefits, " People also know there is a relationship between food and wine, I would say in the last five years sales of wine have increased by 25 percent in the country...before 1999 few Indians were conscious of wine let alone quality wines! But now they are conscious." His family has been growing grapes for the last 20 years. They still grow the seedless Thomsen and Bangalore purple varieties for table consumption and mostly export to London; but most of their acreage goes into growing wine grapes now. They're growing Z infandel and Cabernet Sauvignon from California , and S iraz from Australia...For a couple of years they provided the wine grapes harvest to Sula Wines (also pioneering wine makers) but with increasing harvest they decided to do their own wines after forming a collective of six grape-growing farmers in their village of Vinchur in Nashik. In Vinchur the climate and soil conditions or "micro-nutrients" (which determine flavour of wine) are ideal for growing these grapes..." In fact, they've come a long way from 1999 when they first started cultivating grapes for making wine...today they have a Rs.Four crore plant dedicated to producing wine and sales have touched Rs.1.5 crores this year! For farmers from a humble background it's an achievement and they're not going to look back, "In the beginning we struggled for two years to produce and market our wine...but now the government of Maharashtra has pitched in and we pay zero excise duty...this has helped." IN GOA AS THE CHAIRMAN of Vinsura Vineyards he is here to promote the new Vinsura wines, "Because Goa is a good market for wine. In Goa people know wine and they drink a good wine and ask for it again...tourists come here and the foreign tourists are conscious about drinking quality wines with their meals..." Vinsura Vineyards will soon be launching yet another new wine, Vin Soma , so look out for it. Their wines sell between Rs.350 to Rs.390 depending on the duties to be paid, he's hoping the pricing will come down soon at least for the wines. Their sole distributor in Goa, if anyone is interested, is Vivek Kerkar of Liquid Gold. But this is to wish both Mr. Pralhad Khadangale and his wines good-luck and grand success. I recommend the Zinfandel, Sauvignon Blanc and Rose (beautiful pink and sweetish but not cloyingly so). Incidentally, red wine adds a divine flavour to Continental soups like French onion soup and minestrone...until now I've been using the expensive Chantilly red but now I'm switching over to Vinsura Zinfandel! I also think senior citizens benefit from a glass of good red wine in the evening...so get squeamish about it. I say discover the world of wine even if you despise the hard liquors (this is especially for Hindu women with religious leanings and who suffer from a zillion health problems!). I've often urged my mother (who suffers both from arthritis and hear disease) to accept a glass of red wine in the evening when friends come over, but she blindly rejects the argument that a glass of red wine can do her some good. Red wine's health brief is that it protects the cardiovascular system because of a compound called resveratrol (Japanese researchers have proved that this compound can prevent atherosclerosis in animals and human beings are animals too at biological level, no?)...but ha, ha, fresh grape red juice has even more of this resveratrol and you can't get drunk on it (although alcohol percentages in wine are generally lower than in the hard liquors). Still, there are other things in red wine e.g. allagic acid which is anti-cancer. But the reason why I'm recommending that senior citizens drink a good quality red wine moderately is because it has the mineral boron which slows down osteoporosis and aids retention of estrogen which is essential for calcium absorption during the post-menopausal years....This is to say drink red grape juice , drink red wine...drink it moderately i.e. one glass every evening with your meal, or two for a special celebration. And, yes, check out the red and rose wines of the Vinsura Vineyards of Nashik! --------- Source: http://www.goanobserver.com =====
