Curtain Raiser: All Eyes on delWine Summit & Excellence Awards at Pullman Aerocity on April 21

India Wine Summit whose theme is ‘The Game Changer’ will be inaugurated by H.E. Eleonora Dimitrova, Ambassador of the Republic of Bulgaria in India and will be addressed by Singapore-based Ravi Viswanathan who is a prime investor in the Indian wine industry through P-E funds and owns majority of shares of Grover Zampa Vineyards and is the Chairman of the company, with investments in other wineries as well.

The conference has been divided into three clear segments. The first one deals with the problems of the imported wine market with the theme ‘On a Roller Coaster: Opportunities and Impediments for International Wines. This segment will also welcome Loic Pasquet, owner of Liber Pater, a super boutique winery in Graves making wines from pre-phylloxera vines, who will lead the discussion of the panel moderated by Sourish Bhattacharyya, Director of the delWine Excellence Awards.

The second segment relates to wine education, that plays a prominent role in the growth of wine consumption, not only in India but globally. Christened as The State of Wine Training: Are We Still Talent Crunched? This segment will be moderated by Subhash Arora and will have India’s first and only Master of Wine, who is coming from Mumbai to partake and will have professionals from Retail, hotel industry and educators to assess the latest situation.

Plethora of changing government laws in India are a big detriment to the growth of wine industry in India unlike China which has taken long strides and left India far behind in the international arena. This panel ‘Industry-Government Interface: Regulatory Challenges for the Indian Wine Sector’ will focus on this segment and will be led by Yatin Patil, President of Reveilo Wines and also the All India Wine Producers Association.

In order to keep the interest alive on a lazy Easter Sunday afternoon, there will be a host of prizes for those present ion the peacock Room where all the action is focused.

WOW Showcase

Perhaps the most exciting part of the evening will be the World of Wine Showcase in which producers Sula, Grover Zampa and Fratelli and importers Brindco, Aspri, Prestige, Ace, Hema, Agnetta, VBev, Gusto and The Wine Park will vie to impress the palates of around 300 guests from the hospitality indsutry, diplomats and consumers who are wine connoisseurs. Pullman is perhaps the first hotel in India, which has introduced a house brand Pullman white, rose, red and a sparkling wine.The guests will have an opportunity to rate and taste these wines. To make the Display interesting, there will be an Award for the best stand, to be judged by a 3-woman jury.

There will be an international cheese stand and another chocolate stand in the middle of wine stands where one can enjoy pairing of cheese and chocolates with wines of different style, colour and nationality. Sanah & Shivali, a well-known fashion designer house has been kind enough to sponsor the gifts for the Awardees. Kumar Labels is also supporting the programme which has been majorly sponsored by the wine producers/importers who have embraced the project as a way of promoting wines to a targeted audience.

WOW Awards

Even before PM Modi became the Prime Minister in 2014, delWine came out in the open support of women in wine in 2013 and in an effort to promote woman empowerment, introduced the concept of Top Ten Indian Women of Wine (WOW). This biennial Award is being announced for the 4th time since inception and first time on a public platform. All the Top Ten Women are expected to attend, if they are in India on that day.

delWine Excellent Awards  

This is the highlight and in a way, essence of the whole event. Various pre-announced categories have been selected from the Delhi-NCR region and a Jury of eminent personalities have gone through the rigorous exercise of firstly an analysis of the data submitted to the organisers and experts and then over a 2-day deliberation on April 15-16 at the venue of our partner Hotel Pullman New Delhi Aerocity where the nominees (maximum 3) were individually interviewed in an informal chat and using a point system to reach a consensus. The Final decision rested on the Chairman of the Jury, Ambassador Anil Wadhwa who retired as the Ambassador to Italy on his last posting in 2017 and now works as Senior Fellow & Cluster Leader at the Vivekananda International Foundation, a Think Tank in New Delhi. For other members of the Jury, click here:  

Pullman New Delhi Aerocity, the venue partner for the delWine Summit & Excellence Awards, has an onerous task of hosting the Conference, Wines of the World Showcase, Awards followed by Dinner and the wines from the Showcase; but knowing their past background, they are expected to pass with flying colours.

The main purpose of the Event is to recognise the talent, especially the hidden talent in the hospitality industry and to recognise the personnel from wine servers to the General Managers, besides hotels and restaurants for their wine performance. We take no time to criticise when something is not up to the par but hardly appreciate good work being done by many dedicated personnel in the wine industry.

‘We hope to fill the gap with the second edition and fine tuning the future editions’, says Subhash Arora who will also give out the Editor’s Choice Award for Delhi-NCR Hotels and Stand Alone Restaurants and for the first time recognise the wine-centric General Manager in the Delhi-NCR region. ‘Often the hotels are driven by the General Managers and the passionate ones dedicate themselves to make pragmatic wine programmes to popularise wine as a beverage in their property and when  they leave, the programme tumbles after he leaves and when followed by a wine novice or at any rate a non wine aficionado.

To attend the event, please visit www.delwineexcellentawards.com and register on that page. Remember to punch #delwine, #delwineexcellenceawards.com and #delwineexcellenceawards2019.

For Programme details click here

Award Categories 2019

Subhash Arora

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