Photos By:: Adil Arora
 It‘s fun to walk around in the Miele Experience Center at Jassola in Delhi, looking at the highest-end modern German kitchen appliances that the dreams of chefs and affluent housewives are made of, with each product like an oven, wine cellar, coffee machine, washing machine etc is designed to last at least 20 years without a problem and bring to the fore superb German technology and workmanship.
It’s really interesting to see the Center converted into a mini, elegant Private Dining Room for 30-40 people with a long table-load full of aperitifs and hors d’oeuvres on the side and walking around with a glass of bubbly in hand with tiny 22-carat gold chips floating around, as indeed the members did at this wine event (#202) on October 31 at the Miele Experience Center with this golden Sekt from the German wine company, Franz Wilhelm Langguth.
 The experience becomes a memorable one with the highly acclaimed master-chef Saby cooking an elaborate Menu with the very competent in-house chef staff of Miele, accompanied by a 2-piece band playing delectable music from a bygone Indian era where there was hardly any Italian or the oriental food we were served this evening .
We were also enjoying the company of Patrick F. W. Langguth, the Export Director International, who is now looking after the exports throughout the world of their ubiquitous Blue Nun and the South African Kaya wines. He had enjoyed an evening at a club dinner last year and was keen to repeat during his second visit to India and we were happy to welcome him and share his excitement for the Indian wine market.
Chef Saby has developed a huge fan following that keeps swelling every time he demonstrates his multi-cuisine talent and he must have added a few more admirers during the live demo of making mushroom risotto and a thin vegetarian pizza which was as much a testimonial to the chef as the Miele oven. One didn’t think twice before getting refills of the sparkling Gold Brut from a company with 222 years of history of winemaking, while watching him cook or eating in the plate, two amongst over 20 dishes.
 As A.S Wadhwa, CEO of Nature’s Bounty, importer of a range of Blue Nun and Kaya wines narrated in a semi-jocular vein, this wine is extremely popular with Punjabi males who believe that it improves the virility and has an aphrodisiac effect. For those who did not care to spend the whole evening guzzling the light, pleasant German bubbly (Sekt), there were 6 other wines to taste as well: Blue Nun Riesling, Sylvaner, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot from Languedoc, Kaya Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon from South Africa.
 Blue Nun Riesling and Sylvaner were quite popular because of their simple and fruity charm, even as a few found them a bit on the sweet side. Bringing back memories of the '80s when this style was lapped up by the UK market and elsewhere, there has been a minor reduction of the sugar content to keep in tune with the modern taste of their clientele. It was interesting to know from Patrick that over 50% of the Spätlese Riesling wines were being produced by the Big Langguth - there is another smaller wine estate owned by a cousin Langguth in Patrick’s village Traben -Trarbach in Mosel where his forefathers took root and spread out wings with wines from Germany and France under the exported Blue Nun label and Kaya from South Africa.
 An interesting evening for all, including the young eligible bachelor Patrick Langguth, who is setting up an apartment for himself in his home town and was impressed with the Miele appliances enough to decide to install the same in his new place of abode.
For an earlier related article, click Patrick Langguth vs. Patrick Langguth from Mosel
Subhash Arora
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