Wine snobbery

Now that we have all these imported wines available both at retail and in the hotels and restaurants, the cognoscenti is having a field day demonstrating their superior knowledge and understanding of this esoteric area. While there are some who genuinely know their wines, most operate on the principle that "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king" and use their little knowledge (always a dangerous thing) for social one-upmanship.

One encounters wine snobbery in various forms:

The supercilious xenophile firmly believes that imported is better than Indian at any price point, and till a short while ago, was heard extolling the virtues of the "...Rs 800/bottle French wines I get by the case from my bootlegger." These days he/she is heard raving about "… zis luhvely Chateau Haut Pontet-Canet 2001 I had at the XYZ hotel - just Rs 30,000" - never mind that this is about the same sort of wine that was earlier available at a tenth of the price. By and large this tribe equates price with quality, and (especially if someone else is footing the bill) will happily order the most expensive stuff on the menu without knowing a thing about what's inside.

The Waiterus Ignoramus is found in hotel bars and restaurants all over India and can be identified by the large and intimidating wine menu he habitually brandishes. This creature will proceed to recommend the most expensive wines to the unwary, but tends to retreat ("Uh, I'll just call the Captain, sir") if asked more than one question about the wines in question - no surprise, really, since most waiters (we have no sommeliers in Bharat-that-is-India) have never tasted the wines there. To be fair, those at the top in the big hotels are generally very knowledgeable, but that understanding rarely filters sufficiently far down. Closely related to the Waiterus Ignoramus is the Retailerus Clueless, whose habitat is all retail shops (many posturing as "Wine Shops") - these generally have absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of wines.

Then there's the Non Resident Winophant, who has spent many years overseas, imbibing wines and their associated lore, and now feels qualified to impart some of that accumulated knowledge to us less fortunate domestics. The Winophant may be heard reminicising about "… the great 500-dollar Mouton Rothschild Pauillac 1994 I picked up when last in Calif", tends to congregate in herds of similar species, and while conceding that "Okay, there are a few wines now available down here", will generally stick to depleting his own (temperature-controlled) wine cellar.

It's an unfortunate fact that given our PKK (Piye-Khaye-Khiske) culture, most people will ask for either "a red" or "a white" (rarely "a pink") at those parties, and are happier if it's an imported label - never mind the quality. The only way to deal with wine snobs is to firmly state and stick to your own preferences - as one never tires of saying, if you like a wine, then that's the wine you should be drinking, not what someone else wants you to drink.

Wines I've been drinking: Just finished tasting 86 Indian wines blind, of which more anon. Organised at the Yacht Club Mumbai for a panel of some of India's foremost wine experts, this landmark effort threw up many surprises, not the least of which was the general improvement in wine quality as compared to just five years ago, particularly Chardonnay & Viognier among the whites and Shiraz and some of the reserve reds. The biggest surprise for me was that Grover's La Reserve topped the points tally for reds - welcome back, old friend.

Alok Chandra is a Bangalore-based wine consultant