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Chinmaya
Arjun Raja is President of Alliance Francaise of Madras. A
wine enthusiast, he makes it a point to visit some vineyard and attend
wine tasting sessions during his visits to France. He hopes to attend
a few training programs this year in Loire valley.
He also hopes to see his dream of forming Chennai Wine
Club soon. Towards this goal, he organised the first ever wine appreciation
workshop with a guided tasting session for the general public of Chennai
last week in which the participants were given a basic wine introduction.
It was highly successful, partly he admits, because it
was a novelty and was free of cost. 'We had a tremendous response and
finally we could manage to accommodate only 65 due to shortage of space,
glasses and wine bottles.'
'We had people who tasted wine for the first time and
we also had people who drink wine at least 3-4 times a week. It was an
interesting session and everyone enjoyed!' says Arjun.
'We tasted Sula Sauvignon Blanc, Grover Reserve 2004
and 2005 (to make people understand the difference in taste). We plan
to include French wines in the next session which I will organise on the
8th March.'
The workshop was conducted by Dr. Bruno Monange, a connoisseur
who also owns a small vineyard in Burgundy. He is very knowledgeable about
Burgundy wines and has conducted many wines tasting sessions. He visits
India frequently to help an NGO which treats poor patients in Haveri,
Karnataka.
Bruno spoke of the entire wine making process including
the general nature of wine culture in France, technical aspects about
processing wine, different types of wine, how to choose wine, how to drink,
how to appreciate and also the social aspects of wine drinking.
One hopes that the audience is as enthusiastic when
they have to pay for their wines like the members of Delhi Wine Club do.
Ask Balaji Rao, the President of Hyderabad Wine club and the frustration
shows on his face. 'People just don't want to pay money for good wines,'
he laments. It is to his credit that he continues the crusade.
With a little bit of help from friends like the Delhi
Wine Club, Arjun who had met its President, Subhash Arora at IFE-India
in December, 2007 to discuss the working of the club and was completely
motivated to start one in his city, one hopes to see Chennai soon on the
India wine clubs map.
Subhash Arora
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