The Hindu Business Line : Cheers to Alsatian wine

Let the ingredients speak for themselves, says Eva, taking a sip of the Gewurztraminer wine from the Schlumberger estate in France’s Alsace region. “Can you smell the litchi? It’s got a hint of ginger and rose too,” she pauses, swirling this concoction of “les princes des abbes” in her mouth with a slight gargling sound. “Oxygen comes in contact with wine when it moves through the palate and releases its taste,” she explains.

The 2006 blend is the fourth we are served at the wine lunch organised by the Taj Fisherman’s Cove in Chennai with ‘frontier man’ Jean-Marie Winter, a wine expert and Sales Director with the Domaines Schlumberger, travelling the world to promote offerings from vineyards that trace their ancestry to the 16th century. Eva Corvaisier is the international wine brand manager for Brindco, distributors of Schlumberger wines in India.

There are three more wine servings to come and each is paired with a specially-designed menu by master chef Mohammed Siddiq. As the wines metamorphose from fruity and dry to mildly intense to more “expressive” and finally “smoky and toasty with hints of roasted grapes”, the dishes strut along — Californian prunes to beet-and-cheese cake for vegetarians and salmon caviar to soy roasted chicken for non-vegetarians.

All wine need not blend smoothly with all kinds of food, says Eva. “And sauce is very important in pairing: It’s like the difference between butter chicken and chicken tikka. The Gewurztraminer goes well with Indian food and sauces,” says the young wine enthusiast who earlier worked with Dom Perignon and holds a diploma in French wine exports and has travelled many a wine route.

Gewurztraminer is one of the seven grape varieties Schlumberger uses, along with Riesling, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Muscat, Pinot Blanc and Sylvaner. Half of their 140-hectare big estate situated along the Vosges mountains in Guebwiller, south of Alsace, are ‘Grands Crus’ — a quality certification given to ‘terroirs’ (loosely translated as ‘a sense of place’) based on their geology, exposure and microclimate.

The occupation of making wine in Alsace was considered so prestigious that in the Middle Ages, people found stealing grapes had a hand cut off.

The Romans, who invaded Alsace in 58 BC, wanted to protect men who had knowledge of wine growing and so a law said “anybody who kills a winegrower will be fined twice as if he had killed a simple ploughman”!

There are two wines each from the Riesling and Gewurztraminer variety from the grand crus Kitterle, Kessler, Saering terroirs served at lunch and Eva can’t wait to see our reaction and explain how different each of them are. “It’s the same grape. Same wine maker. But, a different terroir. That’s the magic of terroir,” she says.

“The first part of wine tasting is to see the wine. Very dark reds would mean they are grown in the southern parts as they are warm. In the north, they are a lighter red. With white wines, it’s difficult to tell where they come from. The next step is to shake the wine in the glass and smell the aroma. Then comes the tasting.”

Once you get a hang of the finer aspects, wine is suddenly not just about the colour. There’s a ‘roundness’ to it, a ‘delicacy’, a ‘minerality’, a ‘full-body’, an acidity.

Eva is quick to explain: “Acidity has a negative connotation but it actually tells a wine’s maturity. For instance, children first enjoy sweet tastes and as they grow old, learn to enjoy bitter ones as well.

Similarly, some wines are first sweet and take on a more acidic edge as they age,” she says.

And then, there is wine for starters, wine for thirst, wine for pleasure, wine for dessert. Not to forget that wines have characteristics: they can be dry and proud and virile, elegant and smooth; spicy or plain jane; sparkling, heady, or endearingly mystic. “Wine must first of all be convivial,” says Winter, who remembers having his first sip when he was 18 years old. “Wine may be complex, sophisticated, but it’s easy to come back to. It’s easily drinkable.”

Eva pulls up her nose when talking about ‘perfect’ wines. “It’s like a guy does everything right; has no flaws. That’s not attractive to me. Similarly, wine should not be perfect. It should have its positives and negatives. That’s the problem with so many other wines. They are processed to precision and are so perfect.”

Winter sees the wine story in India growing though “we don’t know how quickly”. “There is a lot of investment in Indian viticulture; this will also help imported wines to be better known.”

He hopes hotel groups like the Taj in India will help spread his estate’s offerings, which clock 8 lakh bottles a year, a small number compared to many other vineyards in the region. Schlumberger wines are stocked in high-end restaurants and cellars and can’t be found in supermarkets. In India, their duty-free prices range from Rs 900 to Rs 1,800.

Most of the new markets for wine are located in Asia, Winter adds. While Japan is classified as a “mature” market and quite well prepared for wine, China is seen far behind India. In India, the target group is a small percentage of the population having an “occidental” way of living, says Winter.

Difficult markets for him have always been those in Europe because of the competition from both old and new producers trying to have their wines sold in mature markets.

Schlumberger estate wines are sold in over 60 countries and Winter wants to first consolidate their markets before moving on. The company was the first to ship Alsace wines to India in 2003.

It’s easy for wine to enter markets that have “a common interest in food”, says Eva. “Enjoying food is the only criteria. Wine can easily adapt. It’s difficult in places like the US without a definitive food culture; there it’s more of junk food, and questions of flavour take a backseat though things are changing now as more people patronise imported cuisine. India, on the other hand, has its very own, rich food culture and our wines can easily adapt to that culture of fine food.”