India warms to wine

For years, wine here was as foreign as snow. Signs promising “wine shops” were a tease, selling only hard liquor. Wine was thought to be wimpy because it did not pack the punch of whiskey and could never stand up to spicy Indian cuisine.

But such views are changing, as a rapidly growing number of Indians embrace wines made in India as well as in foreign countries. Since 1998, wine consumption has increased by as much as 30% a year, according to government figures.

“There’s a snowball effect,” said Subhash Arora, president of the Delhi Wine Club and the Indian Wine Academy. “People are writing about wine, and more people are interested, and more and more people get exposed to wine. They say, ‘What is this wine? Let’s try it. Let’s see what it does.’ ”

The explosion of wine in India is a window into the expanding middle class, the product of an economy growing almost 8% a year.

A few upscale restaurants in Delhi and Mumbai now pride themselves on extensive wine lists. There are wine clubs in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and even Chandigarh, a small city where the amount of wine sold has more than doubled in the last year, according to government statistics. A magazine called Sommelier India teaches about wines and matches them with food. Wine columnists in magazines and newspapers have started pontificating about aromas and tannins.

Last summer, the western state of Maharashtra announced a plan to train local farmers in winemaking. In the state’s fertile Nashik Valley, the wine capital of India, at least 25 wineries now operate; in the early 1990s, none did. A wine institute opened there in July, offering a diploma in fruit processing and wine technology and claiming to be the first wine technology college in Asia. As of October, supermarkets in Mumbai have been permitted to sell wine.

Indian wines, which once tasted vaguely like old socks, also have matured. New labels compete internationally and are even exported to other countries. Sula Vineyards, largely judged to be the best winery in India, ships to the United States. Sula was the first winery in Nashik Valley, planting its first vines about 10 years ago.

“It’s been crazy growth,” said Rajeev Samant, 39, the founder of Sula, which sold 4,000 cases of wine in 2000, its first production year, and estimates it will sell 125,000 cases this year. “It’s pretty much the fastest-growing wine market in the world.”

At a wine tasting sponsored by the Delhi Wine Club on Oct. 31, chefs at the Hyatt Regency Delhi matched Indian food with Chilean wine. One item on the menu was baby eggplant stuffed with cheese, potatoes or couscous, matched with a Montes Alpha chardonnay from 2004.

Around the restaurant, about 60 club members pronounced their verdicts on the event, the 95th since the club formed in 2002. They found the wines delicious, particularly the reds. The food was tasty, but more continental fusion than strictly Indian. One woman said she was getting quite sozzled.

Claire Datta, a chef, said she thought more Indian women felt comfortable drinking wine instead of the hard liquor traditionally favored by Indian men. She said wine had arrived in India because, before Sula, Indian wines tasted either like vinegar or cough syrup. But Datta believes wine still has a long way to go -- steep import duties of 165% to 275% make good wines prohibitively expensive here.

“The most ordinary mediocre wine costs a bomb,” Datta said.

Most liquor stores still don’t stock foreign wine. In the capital area, imported wine is sold at two stores: a government shop in Delhi and a private shop at a suburban mall. Wine is tough to store in India, with its hot climate and frequent power outages.

At the dingy government shop in Khan Market, manager P.P. Singh said he was shocked at the number of wine sales. He said he sells about 300 cases a month during the peak season now, compared with 125 two years ago. But Singh prefers hard liquor.

“I’ve never even touched wine, because less alcohol is there,” he said. “I think this is a waste of money. I will consume a bottle and I won’t be satisfied. I consume a quarter of a bottle of vodka, and it will be sufficient for me.”

A small bottle of White Mischief Zing lime vodka costs $1.10. A bottle of Sula chenin blanc from 2005 costs $9.75. And a bottle of Ernest & Julio Gallo Turning Leaf chardonnay from 2004 costs $20.

Even now, most Indians who drink prefer whiskey. Many restaurants still offer “red” or “white” only, and sending back a bottle of wine can be challenging. India’s per-capita volume remains infinitesimal, about 1 teaspoon per person -- compared with about 2.19 gallons per person in the U.S. But with more than 1 billion people, India’s potential is enticing.

“I find it very exciting,” said Jorge Heine, the Chilean ambassador to India. “The way I see it is, wine is very close to new India. And old India is still very linked to scotch.”