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 Entry Gate No.1 at the Nehru Park led one past the VIP Lounge where the Fratelli wines were being offered on the house to the VIP guests. Unfortunately, I was not one of the VIPs and the security was too tight and tannic perhaps to watch out for any possible terrorist attack on the VIPs who were perhaps the government officials (the event was organised under the support of NDMC which owns the Nehru Park) and would not concede to my request that I was a wine journalist and wanted to take a picture of the Fratelli wine stand for the historic moment. I was also curtly told by 4 burly security guards in civilian outfit that photography of this section was prohibited. (Hence, no picture of the stand, sorry).
 A little further as one walked, one could see wines displayed at the Zanotta stand erected by Ambience Gurgaon-served with a few signature pasta dishes and being served as a few of the variants from Fratelli. The Lodi Restaurant displayed some non Fratelli wines as well. Kylin was selling the San Simone Spumante Rose Brut, being erroneously referred to as Prosecco (Interesting how Prosecco is often referred to as Champagne!) but it had finished before I could make it to the stand. Several stands were selling Fratelli wines. Plenty of beer was available all around. Mercifully, the excise largesse had been rightly restricted to wine and beer.
It was later when I met Vidur Gupta, one of the co-founders of Studiofry-the Visual Content Partner, that I learnt that Fratelli was the Appreciation Partner of the event. This was perhaps the reason that most of the wines at the event-certainly the Indian wines - were from Fratelli. Beer was slightly more easily available and being consumed too. If the example of Kylin were the benchmark, there was a lot of thirst for wines though it could not be considered an opportunity for wine tasting with wines generally selling for Rs. 400-450 a glass.
 The Palate Fest could well be the defining moment for the Delhi wine scene. There is a big thirst for wine festivals in Delhi-in fact Mumbai, Bangalore, Goa, Pune and Nagpur have been organising them successfully for years without any untoward incidences and have been partially successful in promoting wine culture. In fact, the recently organised event by the Karnataka Wine Board in a small city like Hubli, there were reportedly 12000 visitors who not only enjoyed wines but had an opportunity to be wine-educated. It is also an opportunity for the producers and importers to showcase their wines. Thus, it is a win-win situation for everyone including the excise department which gets its due share of the taxes before the wine can enter the ground. In fact, as Mr Sarvesh, general Manager of KWB explaining the situation in Hubli said, ‘the producers had taken smaller quantities of wines to sell (at a discount of 10% to incentivise the potential consumers) since they were not sure of the sales potential and had been too conservative in their assessment of demand and had run short of demand.'
 Of course, the Fest was an over-crowed affair with people stepping on each other but well behaved and no mishaps were observed at least during my stay. The traffic outside the Park was another matter-absolutely chaotic and out of control with the limited Parking space bursting at the seams. The traffic cops were also caught off-guard. However, such glitches can be expected during a maiden event especially when it gets too successful (free entry and the presence of about 60 well known hotels and restaurants were big attractions).
The assessment of total wine consumption can be done later. The key point is that it was available at around Rs. 400-500 a glass and one could enjoy it with meals-and that it was a path-breaking precedent. One can now look at many more such events and one hopes there would be more options and choices for wine festivals starting with the Delhi Tourism organising a similar event in the Nehru Park in early 2015.
And of course, one hopes to see a lot more wine on our palate at the Palate Fest 2015!
Subhash Arora |