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 If you leave the Delhi International Airport for the first time and feel a bit lost with no wine section in sight in the long and never ending liquor section to your left in the Departure Hall, do not despair. You don’t have to seek anyone’s help to locate the small section these days. Moet Chandon has put up a giant display of their ubiquitous champagne which you can’t miss. You may even end up picking up a couple of bottles of their Brut NV, Brut Rose or a Brut Rose 2007-or even the domestic Chandon, but then, that’s  their idea behind spending so much money to draw our attention.
Sparkling wine has been certainly getting more popular in India with the introduction of Chandon a couple of years ago, as Indian Wine Academy had then predicted, despite the lines of anxiety on the smiling faces of the existing Indian producers-and understandably so. But as emphasized even by their head honcho Bruno Yvon at that time, Moet Hennessey India hoped to expand the market and carve its own niche on the strength of its Champagne brand.
Sensing the changing trends since then, Indian Wine Academy recently conducted a survey of women members of the closed group on Facebook, on International Women’s Day, asking them to list their preference in terms of sparkling, red, white rose and fortified wines like Port  and Sherry. Surprisingly, there were no takers for the fortified wines (we assume that our women members don’t imbibe, or at least would not so admit in a public forum) the cheap low-end ‘Port’ wine that represents over 40% of the total wine consumption in India (in the absence of any applicable wine laws currently, at least the producers of 1.3 million bottles of this low ended product label it as wine). A vast majority indicated sparkling wine as their first choice! And women are one of the major factors in increasing wine consumption. Their percentage share in the whole market seems to be increasing the fastest.
Moet Chandon is the heavyweight in Champagnes at the DDF, of course with the Imperial Brut ($58), Rose NV ($75) and Vintage 2006  Rose($99) taking majority of the display space and the quantities.. There is a feeble attempt by Pernod Ricard to showcase Mumm ($51) who have even offered 10% discount There is an ‘I am here too’ presence of CDP, Krug, Roederer, Bollinger, Piper-Heidsieck, Charles Heidsieck but there is also a wide choice of Prosecco, Franciacorta, Australian Sparkling wines (both Hardy’s and Jacab’s Creek) as low as $12. Pernod continues to offer a discount of 10% on one or two bottle purchases, making the Jacobs Creek Reserve and Sparkling wines really interesting buys for the budget conscious buyers. For those who want to try the desi ‘Champagne’  (Sorry, CIVC-most Indians here just don’t seem to appreciate that Chandon is an Indian sparkling wine and not the real McCoy).
There is a rack full of Bottega Gold DOC Prosecco ($33), Lindeman’s Aussie bubbly ($17) and the expensive Mateus Rose sparkling ($18) and the usual Prosecco like Ti Amo, Mionetto, Zonin, and Carpene Malvolti to help you celebrate life.
There is good news for the icewine lovers- Inniskillin icewine Vidal ($80) and Rose Cabernet Franc are back ( $125) unfortunately with no special offers like the previous time, making the latter the most expensive still wine at the DutyFree shop, pipping the Metarromera Reserve 2006 Ribera del Duero costing  $120-earlier as the most expensive wine available. I couldn’t help smiling at the reason for Inniskillin being absent from the shelves for over 4 months. ‘It takes a long time to travel from Canada! It’s not that you order and get it here in a jiffy,’ said the salesman who told me it takes months to travel from Canada, emphasising it was being imported directly! Who can argue with the absurd!
There are a few reds that are available at a decent price to pick up. A couple of reds from Domaines Baron de Rothschild, a Mouton Cadet at $20 or Mouton Cadet Reserve Saint Émilion at $28 are fine if you like to pick up a decent wine as a present for a friend overseas. But my favourite white Piemontese wine Roero Arneis from Marchesi di Barolo 2012 docg is available at $ 48-Forty-eight dollars!! (Wine-Searcher price is $17 ex-tax!!) I would rather pick up the red Sito Moresco Langhe DOC 2012 from GAJA at $60! Of course, you may pick up Hardys and Jacobs Creek if it is the mere number of bottles you are thinking to pick up–and your wallet!
Subhash Arora |