Wine-ing
I accidentally came across this book on wines written by an Indian in a Kolkata bookshop, and then found to my surprise that it has actually been well received in the country. Magandeep Singh, a sommelier who's a consultant with hotels and restaurants, writes with humour and a light touch. In his introduction he confesses that he "was not a 'wine man' to begin with", but persistence, curiousity and patience in the quest to understand what "it was about wine that was so mesmerizing" paid off at the end. The book is arranged in fourteen easy-to-read chapters, and clues in South Asians starting to develop a taste for wine, or even ones who have been regularly drinking it without knowing much about it, about the fine art that lies behind selecting, palates, varieties, vintages, reds, whites, tasting, storing (the chapter is titled 'zen and the art of storing wine'), and even ways to handle the stress of surveying snooty wine lists. And much more. White wines, for example, should be served about one-third of the glass (never more!), and reds about two-thirds. Why? So that each sip is at the right temperature! Pour too much and halfway through "the wine starts to taste awful." For South Asians… well, for a transplanted one like me, however, the most interesting and informative parts are the chapters that deal with which wines to serve with Indian food whites, a floral Chenin Blanc goes best with saag-palak, while the tandoori preparations need full-bodied reds with oak aging. There is also a chapter on Indian wines ('the desi shelf'), a field which, though still a "toddler" is apparently now starting to spread wings with French (who else!) help, away from the traditional popular sparkling wines into a wider range: cabernets and sauvignon blancs, and where the Dindori Reserve Shiraz from the Sula Vineyards actually receives a high rating from Singh. The writing is witty, deft and the knowledge carried lightly, so that even people who do not go near wines can pick it up and have an enjoyable read. And as for ones who do, they'll be amazed at how much info Magandeep has packed into such a slim volume, like the gigabytes one gets in wafer-thin Mac laptops out there now.
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