| I find Kishore Singh's column in the Business Standard ('Mind Your Highs', July 29) amusing and interesting. I take any comment, not so flattering in this case, as a sign of Delhi Wine Club having arrived.
When an esteemed columnist of a pink paper of the stature of Business Standard takes note of Delhi Wine Club (and similar groups) two times in the span of a year, at a time when the Indian economy is teeming with subjects that should grab the attention of a writer of Singh's vintage, what other conclusion can I draw?
Singh justified in his hesitation about gifting the annual membership. I have a better idea. Why not gift a "dinner for two" voucher to your friends for one of our events. They will get to would enjoy an evening with wines that are normally not so easy to get or cheap to order. We usually have five-course dinners with five wines. I don't know of any place in this world where one can have this luxury for Rs 1,600 or less. Members of the Delhi Wine Club get this opportunity at least 18 times a year, without taking any favour or freebie from any wine importer, five-star hotel or restaurant.
I don't know of other clubs (or societies), but we have so far capped our dinners at Rs. 1,600 per member even when we served a top-quality German TbA Riesling, Bordeaux Second Growth Gruaud Larose, or the legendary Gaja wines (we have served unlimited quantities of five wines at each dinner!). One all such occasions, the club subsidised the wines. Unfortunately, we were obliged to escalate our top subsidised price to Rs 1,700 for Olive's 12-course Degustation Menu, when it normally costs, sans mineral water, coffee and wine, Rs 1,695 + taxes (12.5% on food + 20% on wine) + service charge (10%) and optional tips (5%).
More recently, the Hyatt Regency made an exception only for Delhi Wine Club members to sell the Rs 5,000-per-person Cullen wine dinner with award-winning Australian chefs for Rs 3,200. The Delhi Wine Club members who attended the immensely satisfying dinner got to recover more than their membership dues from just one dinner.
This may surprise you, but the club consumes wine at the rate of 0.8 bottle per person at its regular dinners (at our recent 'Wine and World Cup' evenings at the Hyatt and Olive, the members consumed, on an average, a whopping 1.3 bottle!). At all dinners organised by the club unlimited wine is served (the policy is under review, keeping the health of members and the financial health of the club in mind). We do follow the discipline of serving wines in a fixed order keeping in view the dishes being served. We serve only wine - no soft drinks, whisky or beer.
Despite our efforts to limit the activities to 'learning while having fun', we take the drill seriously. We encourage our members to talk more about the wines than their diamonds or their latest visits abroad. They are wealthy enough to go out on their own with friends whenever they want anyway. We are a special interest group and not only a social group. The woody bouquets Singh writes about refer to the oak in aromas, which, though more meaningful for the flavour, is an important characteristic of wine; people may love it or hate it, but it can cause an interesting discussion at the table.
As Singh puts it rightly, the selection procedure is meant to whet potential members. We like to filter out whisky guzzlers (or bootleggers or name droppers), people who merely want to join just because 'wine is fashionable'. We also have many single women as members and you can't fault us for being protective or careful in our procedures to safeguard their interests. I think Singh has been a bit unfair to the 'lalas'. Journalists ought to be careful before making sweeping and arbitrary comments. The thought of keeping out 'lalas' didn't even cross our mind. We just want to keep out people who become members of such clubs because of wrong reasons. We just want people who enjoy wine and want to know more about it. We don't want wine importers or other people who may have a vested business interest in joining a wine club.
We do support other clubs, including your 'home' club - Bangalore . We've been backing the Hyderabad Club, even though it can't be as active as us because of the strange excise laws of Andhra Pradesh (a subject maybe for Singh's next column?). We would certainly like to take credit for helping the formation of the Chandigarh and Lucknow wine clubs. The Wine Society has been doing a great job even before us and I firmly believe a city like Delhi needs several more. Santiago, Chile 's capital, has 200 club; we've only two. Certainly, we have a long way to go.
Singh omitted one very important aspect of the Delhi Wine Club. We established it to promote a wine culture through education and awareness. Being passionate about wine, and being from the IT industry, we had launched the website www.delhiwineclub.com before starting any club activity. The sole objective of India 's first wine webzine was to educate Indians about wine and to disseminate information to wine stakeholders outside India . The constant flow of complimentary mail from over 30 countries is indicative of their appreciation; it is certainly a big motivation that keeps us going.
Being the editor of the weekend section of a business newspaper that also has a reputed web site, Singh should appreciate the cost of maintaining an active presence on the Net. We manage it, and the subsidies we offer, because of the annual membership charges. Not surprisingly, we have membership renewals every year. That's one reason why we've capped the intake of new members.
I am really amused by the insinuation that "its promoters appear to have a commercial interest in the business of wine". It may be Singh who has an interest in attacking us, or maybe he has run out of subjects to write. For the 93 events we have organised since the club was founded in 2002, we have charged an average of under Rs 1,100 per dinner. The cheapest wine on any list today costs Rs 1,800 plus 20% VAT. What can you infer from these numbers. We are either very bad businessmen, or others don't know their maths.
In case Singh wants to write a third column on the subject, let me tell him that we have also been accused of managing low prices by twisting the arms of restaurant managers and owners getting special prices. Let me inform Singh we regard this criticism as our greatest testimonial. We will do anything to keep the cost of our dinners down.
Kishore Singh didn't agree to publish this rebuttal to his column, saying it was too long. He advised Subhash Arora to publish it in his own webzine. We are happy to follow his advice.
To read Kishore Singh's column, go to http://www.business-standard.com
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