New year, new cellar

Italian prosecco is quite trendy and a relatively inexpensive bubbly from the Glera grape

If you were to sample just one new wine each week, you would go through nearly 50 variants (allowing time off to rest) by the end of 2019. That sounds a lot, until you realise that that there are roughly some 10,000 wine grapes worldwide, and that wine is made in at least 63 countries — including unlikely candidates like the eastern Europe ’stans (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan).

And that does not even take into account the categories of wine (still, sparkling, and specialities like port, vermouth and sherry), blends, vintages of the same label, or different types of wines by taste. All considered, one probably has a total of over a million brands theoretically available worldwide. So many wines, so little time to drink them.

So what wines should you aim to try this year? Luckily, thanks in part to the high taxes and controls imposed on wine imports by the centre and state governments, the number of labels available in India is probably “only” less than 2,000. So the choices are still quite a lot but not mind-bogglingly so.

I’ll start with just five sparkling and 10 whites, and will cover reds and specialities in my next column.

Sparkling wines: You must do a Champagne (no Moët please) — how about something like a Bollinger or Billecart-Salmon? Also a Spanish cava — perhaps a Gramona or Codorniu. Then there’s Italian prosecco, that trendy (and relatively inexpensive) bubbly from the Glera grape. Try a Bisol or a Piccini. And, of course, we’re making some nice sparklers in India: Chandon, from the iconic producer, and the Sula Brut Tropicale.

So what wines should you aim to try this year?

White wines: Plan to sample two wines each from the three principal white wine grapes: Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling. Throw in a few regional whites: Tempranillo from Argentina, Chenin Blanc from South Africa, a white Zinfandel (a rosé, actually) from California, and a Viognier from India.

For Chardonnays, you must try a Chablis and a white Burgundy, both from France. As with many items, “paying peanuts gets you monkeys”. So the better wines cost a pretty penny but are worth the expense. Go for a Chablis Grand Cru (2015 was an exceptional vintage) and a Premier Cru white Burgundy like Vincent Girardin or Leflaive.

Sauvignon Blancs don’t get much better than from the Marlborough region of New Zealand, with their distinctive aroma of ripe guava. Cloudy Bay is well-known, as is the relatively less pricy Dog Point.

Rieslings are the aromatic wines from Germany, made from the eponymous Riesling grape. The wines actually vary in taste from bone dry (Kabinett) to off dry (Spatlese), sweet (Auslese), quite sweet (Beerenauslese), very sweet (Trockenbeerenauslese) and extremely sweet (Eiswein)! Burkin Wolf and Fritz Haag are two labels available in India.

Tempranillo is a relatively unknown white wine grape that’s found its full expression in Argentina — look for the Dominio del Plata Susana Balbo.

In South African, the Chenin Blanc is also called “steen” and, contrary to the popular opinion, can range in taste from dry and aromatic all the way to sweet and perfumed. Try a Nederburg Chenin Blanc for starters.

The Zinfandel is a red wine grape that’s used to produce a rosé that’s misleadingly referred to as a “White Zinfandel” — the Sutter Home (California) label is probably the oldest and most authentic.

Lastly, there’s Viognier, a French varietal that’s found good expression in India, where Grover Zampa use it for their La Reserve white and the Vijay Amritraj Reserve Collection — both lovely wines, fragrant and almost medium-bodied.

Alok Chandra is a Bengaluru-based wine consultant