Photos :: Adil Arora
 Apart from food being its natural mate, wine is known to go well with art as well-no matter how expensive. And the kitchen equipment on display at the showroom of the over billion Euro German company is also a work of art-not matter how expensive. Even though it may not appreciate in value during the next twenty years as an art would, but Miele appliances are expected to give a functional satisfaction and aesthetic pleasure unlike the paintings which only adorn the walls.
The showroom has an experimental kitchen which showcases most of the equipment being sold by the company including the wine chiller and multi-functional coffee making machines. There is an in-house young chef Kshitij who can rustle up some very interesting snacks and multi-course dinner for a seating of twelve.
However, the January 6th evening being the beginning of the new year, the club decided to invite around as many members as wanted to attend, for a pass-around, easy to serve snacks and 6-7 wines to go with the following snacks:
 Cheese Platter,Tomato Basil Bruschetta, Cheese & Jalapeno filled mushroom caps, Chicken Teriyaki Skewers, Sweet & Chilli Baby corn, Cocktail Chicken Sausages with barbeque sauce, Chicken Lasagne, Mushroom Lasagne, Baked Vegetables, Cheese Cake,
Bread and butter pudding, Coffee or Tea (optional-only at the end)
Wines selected included a Pinot Grigio from Alois Legeder from Alto Adige region of Italy, Albert Bichot Cote du Rhone white, Caliterra Red from Chile and Grand Coronas from Torres with some Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) from Mumm thrown in and a few single bottles of miscellaneous nomenclature to enjoy-just in case others got finished.
The snacks were served to match generally with wines; whites were served in the first half, followed by reds and then a free choice to the members. The food was more than plenty and delicious. White wines were considered barely acceptable but when a bottle of recently introduced Verdicchio Classico dei Colli di Jesi from Moncaro/ Enzo Mecella in the Marche region was opened, it was polished off in seconds. The reason-everybody loved it! ( a point to remember for us for future).
 In the red wine segment, the Caliterra Merlot from Chile was loved by everyone but the clear winner of the evening turned out to be Grand Coronas by Torres-the full body Cabernet Sauvignon. Fortunately, we had converted the chicken lasagna to the one based on the red minced mutton meat because of this wine, and this was lapped up by everyone.
The club has always emphasized the importance of right stemware for enjoying any wineworth drinking. While the folks at Miele have their own set of glasses (sorry, not the right mould, I might point out) the club had organised swanky stemware from Spiegelau, the well known German label- a cousin of the Austrian made, world class, top rated Riedel, both owned by the same company. The members were asked to pour some of the red wine being tasted in the glasses from Miele and then pour the same in Spiegelau glasses and feel the difference in flavours and aromas.
The results have not been tabulated yet but suffice it to say that the members loved and preferred to drink in Spiegelau glasses and by the end of the evening, the hosts had decided to buy the same for their future wine tastings programmes (it might add to their image that both Miele and Spiegelau are German, quality labels).
 Ms. Chandna Singh, the head of the showroom cum experimental kitchen center and her staff were present to mingle with the crowd and helped them feel at home and enjoy the evening. She said,’ we have organised quite a few events but none was so lively where people seemed to mix around and generally enjoy themselves with a lot of bonhomie.’
Before that, several members of the club said a few words sharing their Club experience and talked about how it had changed their life or brought another dimension. The evening experience was summed up by Tarsillo Nataloni, the Italian chef-owner of Flavors Restaurant who said,’ Grazie Mille’ to Miele for the lovely meal.
We would be back soon enough, one hoped.
Subhash Arora |