The first wine I ever had was a Goan 'port': attending a sales conference in Goa in 1983, the hotel room had a half-bottle of the stuff (Vinicola, I think, along with an 'AP' wineglass) on the cabinet. I poured out the wine, added a cube of ice to cool it, sipped the sweet liquid, and felt terribly sophisticated.
For many of my generation, Goan ports were their first introduction to the arcane world of wine, no matter the drink was barely 'wine' as understood by experts and aficionados. Nevertheless, it is the first rung on the wine step ladder - if even a few get on, India will become a huge market for wines.
Port wine ('Vinho do Porto') is the fortified wine from Portugal: it comes in a variety of styles, from dry to sweet, is produced using almost any grape grown in its heartland (the Duoro river valley of Portugal), and became popular in England from 1703 onwards as its wars with France deprived English consumers of French wines and brandies. Essentially 'port' was developed by English wine merchants as an alternative (and cheaper) libation to French wines - witness the English names of the most famous Port companies: Cockburn, Dow, Croft, Gould, Graham, Osborne, Sandeman, Taylor, and Warre.
Since the Portuguese had come to Goa about two centuries before port was invented, they couldn't have brought the wine with them - the drink must have arrived here only in the early 1700s. However, local production of fortified wines would have commenced much earlier as demand was bound to have outstripped supply, given that the sailing ships of those days could come only once a year from Europe.
After its 'liberation' in 1961, Goa was a Union Territory till 1987, and the state continues to enjoy the most liberal licensing regime in India for alcoholic beverages: one can still set up a bar or shack practically anywhere, and getting a licence to produce or bottle spirits and wines is not too difficult. This is why Goan retail shops still have many locally-produced spirits packed in exotically-shaped bottles: Feni, liqueurs, and of course Goan 'port'.
Goan port-style wines were actually the first wines produced in modern India: the first unit (set up in 1965) was Vinicola by one Ivo da Costa, behind his beautiful 100-year old Portuguese-style bungalow outside Margao town. Vinicola is still there, now managed by grandson Rahul, churning out a port-style wine using traditional methods (Bengaluru blue grapes, hand-crushed and fermented in 50-litre drums, with manual fortification and sweetening) that retails for all of Rs 150 per bottle.
There are another nine units still producing and bottling 'port' wines in Goa, the hallmark being that most of them produce both spirits and wines. The most prominent are Tonia and Oceanking, and both had set up stalls at the 'Grape Escapades' wine fair held in end-January in Panjim where they competed with conventional grape wines from other Indian wineries.
So what, if anything, sets Goan 'ports' apart from similar wines being produced elsewhere?
Probably the ambience: There's little to beat the experience of sipping a wine cocktail (or indeed any other such libation) watching the sun going down on any of Goa's fabled beaches - not something that can be replicated anywhere else in India.
Wines I've been drinking: The Big Banyan range of wines (no, not ports), tasted at their winery in South Goa two weeks back. Made using grapes from Maharashtra, the wines are all good to very good, with the Cabernet Sauvignon 2013 rated at 88 points by me: soft tannins, fruity and full-bodied, with some complexity.
Saude (Portuguese for 'Cheers')!
Alok Chandra is a Bengaluru-based wine consultant
