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Photos By:: Adil Arora
 The 2012 vintage Arros is a blend of two-third Shiraz with one third being Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine has spent a year in the French and American Oak barrels, the majority of which are new and the others being a second pass, according to Kailash Gurnani, the partner winemaker. It had also been kept in the bottle for a year to round it off. It has now matured nicely and drinking beautifully and will perhaps continue to live for one or two years more.
This wine makes better sense than their labels Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve and the Shiraz Reserve priced at around Rs. 850, which have now been discontinues. ‘We found that the quality and flavours of the two, especially Cabernet, were difficult to make consistently due to climatic variations. We also were wary of using ‘Reserve’ on the a label and decided to bring out a new label in the form of ‘Arros’ with modern packaging, making it our flagship wine,’ says the young Adelaide University- trained winemaker. Less than 400 cases of the wines were made.
‘Each bottle has a number which is printed on the front and back label. The wine is available easily in Delhi at several Retail shops including Defence Stores and Taste in Defence Colony, Ashok T Gulrajani, C Suri, Kavinder Wines, Shiva Petroleum, Le Marche and a few other retail stores in shopping malls’, says Ravi Gurnani, partner adding that they have made about 5300 bottles in this label for the 2013 vintage.’ Hema Connoisseurs is their local distributor.
 Tasting Notes: The dark and inky colour is the hallmark of this wine with clean, complex, highly perfumed aromas of red berry fruits with spicy notes. It is full bodied with good extraction and concentration on the palate-full of red berry flavours with a sweet front attack, dark chocolate, mocha and coffee. Persistent, clean and juicy finish, are the predominant features in the balanced wine having good structure. Tannins are ripe and have already mellowed down. The sweet front attack is perhaps due to a bit of high alcohol (14.5%) which feels excessive if the wine is warm. So drink it slightly cooled at around16 °C. Decanting is recommended for 30 minutes; it will help open up the wine.
Food and Wine match-It would be an excellent match with tandoori kebabs especially mutton and seekh tikkas (I’d avoid with fish and chicken), roast meats like Siikandri Raan, baingan bhartha, mushroom preparations and dry karela (bitter gourd). I had tried it once with mutton curry having a full blast of complex flavours at the dinner table. One would think it makes a delightful match with the red meat but it didn’t! The flavours of the full-flavoured dish were too powerful for the tannins even though they were ripe. The wine didn’t bring out the synergy with food so try with different dishes to see what goes best for you-it won’t go wrong with the preparations I have suggested. A great match with ham and hard cheeses too.
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York Winery introduces Red Arros and Brut Cuvee
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Subhash Arora |