|
Apparently, there had been a cross connection somewhere
in the magazine which had featured a few articles and had erroneously
quoted our club as a source for procuring home-made wine producing accessories.
When I told him that the Delhi Wine Club was into promoting wines and
creating wine culture through education, and not in production or sale
of wine, he sounded upset. I did offer him writing to a couple of wine
producers and get him the info, but, saying he could get it himself, he
became rather livid.
'This means you are doing a half baked job. Don't you
think you should encourage people to make wine in the house rather than
helping the wine producers?' I didn't understand his logic, perhaps because
that part of wine making does not interest me a lot. I told him there
was so much to learn and teach about wine that perhaps it was not feasible
for us to include this aspect of wine in our programmes. (I didn't have
the heart to tell him that technically it was illegal to produce wine
at home without a license).
He started shouting and accusing me of working for the
wine lobby. After screaming some more, he hung up. It did occur to me
that by promoting wine culture for the last 6 years through the club activities
and publishing about them and other India-centric news items on India's
first webzine, we had perhaps helped the Indian producers more than the
importers. In no case, are we directly linked to any winery.
In any case, the club does not engage in any wine related
trading. We are a consumer club of like minded people who like to learn
informally about wine while enjoying it at events. We do not accept applicants
who are in wine trading, though we have a couple of members who decided
to import wines much after joining and it is a moot point whether they
should continue membership. Many new applicants who are engaged in the
wine trade promise us not to upset the club equilibrium if they were made
members. But the rules are not relaxed by the screening committee which
controls the admission.
The club takes pride in being neutral towards wine producing
nations, our individual preferences notwithstanding. We encourage members
and visitors to our website to drink wine from any country, drink fine
wine and drink wine moderately. The wines could be winery-made or home
made; we make no distinction. We realise that wines can be produced from
fruits, other than grapes, but we focus only on the grape produced wines
which offer endless opportunities of learning and enjoying.
We do not allow smoking during tasting and have turned
down several offers of combining cigars with wines, or serving cognac,
or other distilled wines, single malts, sake etc. and wine is the only
beverage during our programmes. We follow an order of serving wines, which
we normally do not run short of. Bottles are not allowed to be left on
the tables and we do not like wastages. We realise that the amount consumed
during a dinner can be harmful for health, but these evenings are exceptional
in more ways than one.
We would like to see more and more Indians drinking wine,
even if it benefits the wine producers or importers who are there to make
a pretty penny anyway. But we do not engage in buying or selling wines,
accessories or other related commercial activities. We also do not sell
yeast or refractometers….
We are like that only.
Subhash Arora
President, Delhi Wine club
January 8, 2008
|