On Saturday, we spent a relaxing afternoon at the Bandra Wine Festival, conveniently located within easy staggering distance from our apartment and a great opportunity to learn more about local wine.
Wine making (and drinking) is on the up in India and most of this happens around Nashik, a city three hours from Mumbai with a Californian climate well suited to wine-grape cultivation. We have been to Nashik before although, up to now, the only way to try new Indian wines has been a buy a bottle, so it takes a while to try the full range of what's on offer. The wine festival presented the perfect opportunity to rectify this omission.
The Bandra Wine Festival has been going for several years and the organisation was slick and smooth. The entrance fee was surprisingly inexpensive too - for £4.50 each we could enter the festival and were 10 tokens to taste local wine, 4 to taste international wine, 8 vouchers for cheese tasting, a wristband and several other types of ticket. The most challenging part was keep track of all the bits of paper, which became harder as the number of wines we tried progressed!
We thoroughly enjoyed trying wines from many different producers. The quality was variable, from pretty good to novelty (pineapple wine anyone?) to unpleasant, and we bought a few good bottles to take home. So far, we have struggled to find Indian reds that we like but this changed on Saturday and we'll know which brands to go for in future.
The drinking mentality at the wine festival differed from what we saw in California or in the UK at similar events. The primary objective for lots of people seemed to be get drunk rather than taste the wines, though certainly not for everyone, and we heard requests like "give me your strongest / best wine" frequently while at the bar. Saying that, many of the wine producers were passionate about their produce and keen to raise awareness both in India and internationally. Wine is increasingly understood and valued in India.
The mix of people attending the festival was cosmopolitan - everyone was speaking English as a first language (most of the people there were Indian) which reflects the affluence of the attendees. We were stuck by the predominance of the rich elite at the festival; at a similar event in the UK (a beer festival) you would get a much bigger mix of people from across different social classes.
The food at the festival was great too with lots of local good start-ups selling their wares. We found some lovely home-made cakes and jams and end up bringing lots of these home too!
The covers were required as amazingly it rained (the first since 2010!)
Lots of seating, it could have been a pub garden
More fancy wine display
One of Philip's favourite reds
More vino stands
The highlight of my day though was not wine-related. On the way to the festival driving up from South Mumbai, we passed a broken down autorickshaw being pushed along by another autorickshaw. There were no tow ropes used though, instead the driver of the working autorickshaw was pushing the second with his foot whilst moving at high speed. Genius!
Breakdown cover - Mumbai style
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