|  Our favourite Tarapaca story is the one that was told to us by the Chilean Ambassador, Jorge Heine. His Excellency has invited the president of the company that owns Vina Tarapaca, the Chilean winery based in the Maipo Valley , to Olive, the ambassador's favourite restaurant in the rural suburbia of India 's capital.
Tarapaca's top honcho was so delighted to see four of his wines on Olive's list - he had least expected it - that he insisted on picking up the tab. The Chilean government saved some money and the Ambassador, his lovely economist-wife and the visitor had a great evening with four bottles of wine.
Tarapaca was the wine of choice at a dinner organised by Helen Meyers, a Texan with a lovely southern drawl, and Mukesh Balodhi, a much-travelled sommelier, at ACSA, the American Embassy's dining and recreation area. The Indian Wine Academy President, Subhash Arora, guided the guests through the wines served at the dinner, where much effort had gone into pairing the food with the wine.
The first was a refreshingly dry sparkler from Austria , Schlumberger Rose. It would have held it ground without the accompanying appetizer, but the sparkling wine and the gently dressed salad did justice to each other. Frankly, spoilt as we are by the Chablis Premier Crus and the creamy Margaret River chards, we have reservations about Tarapaca's hyper-oaky style, a point Arora made diplomatically in his presentation.
We were pleasantly surprised, though, by the perfect union between Cream of Asparagus Soup and the Tarapaca Chardonnay 2004 - it was a classic case of food and wine giving a hand to each other. Equally inspired was the match between the Piritas Estate Bottled Chardonnay 2003 with the Grilled Jumbo Prawns dressed in Dill Sauce, and the lone vegetarian among us gave a Perfect 10 to the combination with Crepes stuffed with Cheese and Veggies on a bed of Creamy Marinara Sauce.
 It just goes to show that what's important for a great wine dinner is to score high on the satisfaction index and not get swayed by wine snobbery or preconceived notions. And if you compare Tarapaca's prices with the satisfaction it is capable of delivering, then it'll be evident that satisfaction is not always directly proportion to price.
Nonetheless, there was a serious division of opinion on the match between the Cabernet Sauvignon 2003, a beauty expressing a lot of the Chilean sun, with the other main course, Bell Peppers stuffed with Minced Meat served on a bed of Pasta tossed in Fresh Tomato Sauce. A restaurateur from the tony Potomac River area of Northern Virginia , Charles J. Billand, wasn't convinced that the match worked. Maybe the wine deserved robust lamb chops to stand up to its tannins. Incidentally, Virginia , where Thomas Jefferson planted vines he had brought from France in the 1770s, is fast becoming a booming wine area, a subject on which Adam Strum, Publisher, Wine Enthusiast , has written a brilliant article (you can read it on www.winemag.com).
Interestingly, some of the guests felt the Cabernet Sauvignon and the Grilled Prawns got along like a house on fire. That's the beauty of wine - there's no predictability about it, which is what makes it a great ice breaker on the dining table.
 The dessert wine, a Moscatel Oro from the Spanish wine behemoth, Torres, bordered more on the fruity side. We like our dessert wines to show a delicate balance between lychee and honey notes on one hand and acid on the other, as you find in Sauternes or Vin Santo. But no one was complaining and the dessert choices were too satisfying to allow anyone to pay much attention to the wine.
It was a memorable evening and the guests knew their food and wine. Meyers oozed southern hospitality (her "y'all" reminded me of the great lunch I had at Miss Bobo's Boarding House in Jack Daniel's country - Lynchburg , Tennessee ). Balodhi's boys worked like clockwork and Chef Vinod ability to cook comfort food was impressive. Sadly for us, Meyers is going back to Rockport , Texas , the venue of one of the most exciting wine festivals in the United States , but she's not leaving without organising a world wine festival at the American Embassy's vast baseball diamond. That'll be one event we wouldn't like to miss.
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