The Wineglitz India Academy

What are your favorite types of foods?

My favourite types of foods are those which are made by my better half at home to go with wines from our home bar.

How it Started My growing liking for wines also introduced me to the concept of Food and Wine Pairing. I even had a proverbial eureka moment at an Italian Wine Dinner, where the cheesy sea bass matched so well with the paired Chardonnay that something immensely pleasurable clicked in my mind instantly.

Happens with Everyone I’m sure this happens with all wine enthusiasts in their oenological journey. Over a period of time all wine lovers become an ardent fans of good food and wine pairing.

The problem however is that such wine dinners do not happen very frequently. And frankly, ordering a wine paired meal at any decent restaurant can burn quite a hole in the pocket. This, along with some curiosity prompted us to try pairing wines with homemade food.

The very first dish we made at home to pair with wine was the one in the shared image below. You can also read about it here.

This simple oven baked bread (with olive oil sprinkling), brie cheese (in the bowl) alongwith grounded peanuts in a strawberry sauce (in the separate bowl), paired nicely with the Chilean Pinot Noir (though I would also recommend it with a white wine).

I’m Loving It After this we became quite regular at making wine friendly foods at home. Mostly it was with Italian foods like pizza, pasta, spaghetti etc, as also with quintessential Indian foods like mutton kebab and chicken tikka. And it was all so delicious 😋.

Here are few photos with explanatory captions.

Spaghetti

Pizza

Homemade pizza with wine

Spaghetti Again

Bruschetta

Chicken Fritters

Your’s Truly

Mutton Kebab

Chicken Tikka

Chocolate

One for the Beach Encouraged by some wonderful food and wine pairings above, we also got a bit adventurous and tried out some pairings at our wine picnic by the sea.

Towards end, i exhort all of you to also try out pairing dishes made at home with wines of your choice. And do not forget to share the recipes of the same. Cheers 🥂

How often do you walk or run?

I walk quite a lot. There are days together when me and my wife go for the evening stroll. Often there are gaps in this walking routine too, but we try our best to be regular.

But today I will talk of a different kind of walk – one that I always look forward to. And that’s my walks in a vineyard, whenever I visit one. Here are my three such experiences.

Grover Zampa Vineyards

This was my very first visit to a vineyard where I was like the proverbial Child in a Candy Store (Collins describes this as: enjoying yourself far too much and not controlling your behaviour in any way). Here are the things which I noticed during my short walk here:

Apiary Just on entrance of the vineyard is an Apiary – which is a colony of artificial beehives. Bee culture is part of the bigger scheme to promote diversity in the vineyards. And Mr Manjunath, the viticulturist told me “Happy bees means happy vines”.

Rain Water Harvesting Again near the entrance itself during a side I found a huge artificial pond which stores rain water for recharging the ground water.

Sloping Vineyard While walking through the vineyard I also noticed a gentle slope. This ensures proper air flow through the vine canopy, helps in soil drainage and provides an ease of working in amongst the vines.

Big Banyan Vineyards

Vineyard Soil During the walk in this vineyard, it was for the first time that I actually picked up the soil in my hands to have a feel of it. Soil, as we know is one of main components of terroir.

Shape of Leaves I also took this opportunity to have a close up look at the leaves of the vines. The one in picture is a leaf of Shiraz Grape. It has medium size 3 to 5 lobed leaves with short, sharp teeth. Resembles angle wings.

Domaine Sula

Windmills The first thing I noticed on entering this vineyard were multiple medium size windmills. I couldn’t understand the exact utility of these except maybe to indicate wind direction. Notwithstanding they add a lot of beauty to the scenic vineyard.

Leaf Disease Diseases of various kinds are not new to vines and their leaves. On a closer look I noticed some diseased spots on some leaves.

KRSMA Vineyards

Roses at Edge of Vine Rows Roses were planted at the end of rows in this vineyard. These act as an early warning system against vineyard diseases. For example such rose attract insects like aphids before the vines. They also get fungal disease like black rot and mildew before the vines do thereby alerting the winegrowers about any impending onset of disease in their vineyards.

Drip Irrigation Controlled Drip irrigation provides water to the vines at the right time when the they feels the maximum water stress. I saw that black flexible pipe running all along the bottom of the vines for this purpose.

Cover Crops Cover crops are planted between the rows of vines. They represent an alternative to chemical weeding and tillage. This technique is not new though, as the Romans were already using it 2000 years ago. It is considered a good viticultural practice with positive effects on soil.

For all other wine enthusiasts I have this advice. Before going for a vineyard visit make a list of things you would be looking for and then make a deliberate attempt to actually see and observe all of these. It would add immensely to your knowledge of viticulture.