With the help of Google, any wine information on the Net can be on your finger tips as fast as you can use the tips to press your computer keys. Like in any other field, the Net has given the wine education a tremendous boost.
There is no denying that Indians are still in the 'print please, we are Indians' mode. A recent case: there was an article in Brunch, the free supplement with the HT Daily newspaper, last Sunday about 'The great wine scam'. I was in Germany when some of our readers wrote to me about an interesting article by Vir Sanghvi.
On my return I checked up the article, I was amused. In South Africa ten days earlier, I had spotted the news item regarding Wine Spectator and the fake restaurant getting an award. We had already published on out website and sent out to our delWine readers over a week earlier and had already received many accolades-but from readers outside India!
Wine Sales online
At the click of a button you could find out the prices of practically any wine on sites like wine-searcher.com. Most of the wine merchants sell wines online- Tesco, Wine Library, BBR are just a few of the random examples. The big news is the recent announcement that the world's biggest retailer Amazon is ready to sell wine through its portal. Presumably small and medium sized wineries will be the beneficiaries but it would certainly give an impetus to wine sales and education.
Sitting on the Net and learning about wine can be a full-time occupation and almost as intoxicating as imbibing the real thing.
Net the Nightmare
While the use of internet can be like a sweet dream, it can also be a nightmare at times as we found out to our chagrin. Our mail server suddenly packed up recently; we were told later that this was due to the ever increasing mail traffic generated by a constant addition of new subscribers, that went un-noticed and the system we were using was not tuned to such heavy traffic.
It has taken a few jugaads (inexplicable Indian word for make shift, hit and miss and a short term instant remedial arrangement) to send the mails during the last few days. This may have resulted in no delWine for some while more than a couple of mails to others (to this group the apologies are more profuse).
A lot of efforts, bigger and dedicated mail server later, we hope we are back on the track of sharing our passion and information with our subscribers who have been requesting us for a print version of the online magazine- the first of its kind for the wine, food and hospitality industry. We are addressing the issue.
Our immediate objective is to ensure we are able to keep you up to date not only on the Indian wine industry front but also to a lesser extent the Indian retail industry, as we believe that the exponential growth in wine sales will come from the much awaited government policy in different states allowing growth in wine consumption through availability in the organised retail sector.
Incidentally, if you don't receive some edition of the e-magazine delWine, visit www.delwine.com which has all the editions in place . Also, the news stories are posted on our website www.indianwineacademy.com on a daily basis- even if the assemblage for delWine may have occasional problem.
Blog
Last but not the least, do check out the recently created Blog on the website, which can also be accessed through the button on the top right. It has interesting information on many topical subjects including Tasting Notes on some of the wines I taste, even if they are not yet available in India.
There will be an increasing activity in this area-hopefully with your participation and inputs.
Cheers,
Subhash Arora |