The Wine This Week (And Some Spirits): Edition One

Events:

ProWine 2024 Perhaps one of the biggest wine and spirits trade shows in India, ProWine is set to take place in Mumbai later this week. Importers, winemakers, chefs, sommeliers, bar and restaurant owners, journalists, content creators and those in allied industries will congregate at the Jio World Convention centre to network, taste wines, attend masterclasses and participate in panel discussions. I’ll be there too and would love to meet you if you’re around. ProWine Mumbai, November 8-9, 2024, Pavilions 2 and 3, Jio World Convention Centre, Bandra Kurla Complex. 11am-7pm. Registration mandatory and admission to the event open only for those above the age of 25. Click here to register.

Viva La Vino Sommeliers Devati Mallick and Gargi Kothari have conceptualised India’s first wine festival that’ll be held in six cities – Bangalore, Delhi, Goa, Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata. The first edition kicked off in Bangalore on October 26 and the second one will occur in Mumbai on November 23. Check out the festival’s Instagram page for details on tickets and other crucial details.

News Digest

Bordeaux winery investments turn sour for Chinese investors It seems Chinese investors have been caught on the wrong foot (or in the wrong vineyard!) when it comes to investing in wineries. Thanks to a recent Chinese government decision that prevents citizens from investing overseas, chateaux in France are selling “for peanuts”.

Is Climate Change Crushing India’s Growing Wine Industry As if government rules and regulations on alcohol weren’t stifling enough, Mother Nature too has decided to disrupt the growth of India’s wine industry. So suggests this Indian Express piece. “Vineyards are now grappling with growing conditions that differ drastically from those they were once suited for,” it said. “Emerging markets like India are hit too, owing to higher temperatures and irregular rainfall.”

How a Tiny Vineyard Along an Interstate May Reshape the Wine Industry Excellent piece in The New York Times on how Christopher Renfro is making winemaking more inclusive for people of colour in San Francisco, via The Two Eighty Project

In a warming world, English sparkling wine challenges French champagne It isn’t just India’s wine sector that’s been hit by climate change. The effects are visible in England too but, thankfully, for the better. This Washington Post piece traces the rise of sparkling wine in England that can hold their own against their storied and epynomous counterparts from Champagne in France.

Karan Vasani of Sula Resigns as COO Big news from the world of Indian wines. Karan Vasani, Chief Winemaker and Chief Operating Officer at Sula Vineyards, will move on from his current role in December. It was under his watch that Sula’s premium wine segements – Rasa and The Source – came into their own, winning awards and the affection of consumers. I personally like the tropical Sauvignon Blanc and the Grenaché Rose from The Source. The Rasa Shiraz is eminently drinkable too.

Jancis Robinson on her India visit The grand dame of the wine world visited India last month and found that a growing number of affluent Indians are turning to wine. Robinson writes about tasting premium wines like J’Noon and Chandon Aurva, Indians’ obsession with powerful reds and the connection between wine and powerful air-conditioning.

India welcomes first tender coconut wine by Kerala farmer “Sebastian P. Augustine, a retired deputy tehsildar and farmer from Bheemanady, [in Kerala’s Kasargod district]has been granted the license to produce this unique beverage,” reports ETV Bharat. “Augustine's venture, River Island Winery, will utilise tender coconuts along with dragon fruit, mango, banana, jackfruit, and papaya, all sourced from his own farm. The process requires 1,000 tender coconuts and 250 kg of fruits to produce a 250-litre batch of wine, without adding any water,” the report added.

The Dangerous Work of Making Wine Winemaking might sound glamorous but, as this piece demonstrates, can be fatal. The reason: carbon dioxide asphyxiation “which is a well-known killer, primarily during harvest season when fermenting vats give off highly dangerous levels of the gas”.

A derelict nuclear bunker as a wine cellar? Why not, asks a real estate agent “Auctioneer Trevor Blythe, of the Brown & Co estate agency, admitted that the bunker is no longer practical since the threat of nuclear war has seemingly subsided,” reported Decanter. “When pressed for a potential use case, he suggested: ‘Maybe a wine cellar. I can’t think of any other use for it except to come down and enjoy it for what it is – a hole in the ground.’ The bunker was built during the 1950s, when tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union began to seriously escalate. Farmers in Norfolk [England] were concerned that they would be caught in the crossfire, so they built a nuclear bunker,” the report added.

From The World of Spirits:

The Whiskey Industry Is Bracing for a Trade War if Trump Wins. It’s Not Alone The New York Times reports that “many businesses around the world are facing uncertainty about the future of American trade policy and the tariffs that products will face in global markets. For the whiskey industry, the stakes are particularly high,” it said. “In March, a 50 percent tariff on American whiskey exports to Europe will snap into effect unless the European Union and the United States can come to an agreement to stop the levies.”

New Indian Single Malt Whiskies Hold Their Own Against Scotch Kara Newman at Bloomberg writes about the growing popularity of Indian single malts – some of which are on offer at Bungalow, New York’s trendiest Indian restaurant, helmed by Chef Vikas Khanna. “Tasting across multiple brands, I frequently detected cardamom, ginger and orange; fennel seed, sandalwood and incense-like spice notes sometimes also came through,” wrote Newman. My personal favourites include the Amrut Fusion and Paul John Edited

Substack Recommendations

Eat This, Drink That and Live Well Fiona Beckett, The Guardian’s former wine columnist, on a lifetime of cooking, tasting and traveling

Wine Is Confusing Kara Daly unpacks and busts myths about wine and what it can tell us about the world we inhabit

Jason Drinks Jason Miller’s substack focuses on all things boozy but with a particular focus on wine.

Drinking Culture Henry Jeffreys dives deep into the history and culture of alcohol – wine and whisky in particular.

Postscript: Readers of a particular vintage might have noticed that the headline for this week’s edition is a homage to The World This Week, one of India’s earliest TV news programmes. Dr Prannoy Roy, the face of that show and the father of English news broadcasting in India, might be off TV but is now on YouTube. On Dekoder, he along with his former NDTV colleagues Nidhi Razdan and Dorab Sopariwala will analyse the results of the US elections on November 6, as only they can – with calm, sharp commentary, lots of data and a healthy dose of dad jokes!

The Roy-Sopariwala duo have posted short videos demystifying the American election process. Check them out here.

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