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| Rajesh Suri with Linda and David Carr Taylor |
Taylor & Shroff Wines to complement hot and spicy Indian food launch was hosted by Rajesh Suri, CEO of Tamarind Restaurant Group at their Imli Restaurant in Soho, London on October 8th. Some of the invited guests we met included David and Linda Carr Taylor, Chairman and Executive Director of the company. Nainaz Shroff, managing director was unable to join from India due to some visa issues but her aunt and uncle Nadirs attended. Ben Furst, consultant to Taylor & Shroff, Lauren K Morrey of International Food 7 drinks Expo India, Tara Punjwani, UK India Business Council, Tiny Deol of Specialist Food Company, Emma and her colleague from Great Britain Army Wives charity were some of the invitees present at the event.
Ishita Arora, Event Sales manager of the Tamarind group and Samir Sadekar, Kitchen Manager of Imli were looking after all the guests. Linda Carr Taylor met the guests at the entrance of hall and Samir ensured that each guest was served the Taylor & Shroff red and white wine with ice.
Almost all the people we met, their initial reaction was ice in wine! But soon everyone realised the reasons. Both red and white wines are sweet and the sweetness reduces when you add ice and it tastes better. The wines are smooth to drink and there is no after taste in mouth. The wines are 17% alcohol and mixing these wines do not give a hang over, we were told. The starters served with these wines included, aloo tikki, lamb tikki, fry fish, chaat puri, chicken with mint sauce.
These wines would be liked by people who like sweet wines like Mateus Rosé, and those who are new to the whole wine tasting experience. Those of us who are used to the western wines, it would require a bit of getting used to. Lauren, Ishita, Emma and Sheena, they all preferred red wine with their starters. My personal choice was white wine.
The evening was followed by Ben welcoming everyone to the launch. David Taylor introduced the wines. He gave a brief history of how he came to make this wine-followed by Rajesh Suri telling us how he felt there was a gap in the market for wines that complement the delicate flavours of Indian cuisine he served, and now Taylor & Shroff wines might fill this gap.
Buffet dinner was served with three different wines, cherry, apricot, and ginger wine with dessert. The menu was mixed- paneer, kali-daal, rice, naan, lamb curry and fish curry were served. Again the general feedback was that the wines complimented the food and did not overtake the flavour and taste of food, though there was a distinct but mild flavour of the cherry, ginger and apricot.
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| Samir Sadekar, Jayshree and Ishita |
There were about 30 people who attended the launch. Those who were present agreed that these wines would definitely go well with women. As David said, almost 70% of females eat out and they prefer off-dry (slightly sweet) wine to a beer with food and so these wines should find a good market.
As Taylor informed us, Taylor & Shroff UK have already exposure and endorsements from Tandoori Magazine, Menu Magazine and Mood Food Online, Exclusive London Online, Sponsors to National Curry Week and The Curry Tree, TV Chefs Manju Malhi and Mridula Baljekar, tinydeol.com, Paul Sagoo of Asian Runway, Andy and Arjun Varma of V8 Gourmet Group etc.
The Imli launch was part of their UK launch strategy which involves other regional restaurant launches in Nottingham, Hastings, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow. I was told that these wines are also been launched in India by Nainaz Shroff.
Jayshree Balchandani |