How to pair Indian food with wine? Kunal Vijayakar offers tips | Mumbai news - Hindustan Times
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How to pair Indian food with wine? Kunal Vijayakar offers tips

Hindustan Times | ByKunal Vijayakar
Feb 01, 2019 08:42 PM IST

Can it be done, given our rugged cuisines? Of course, says the foodie. As long as you forget the rules the Europeans made up.

We’ve just gone past a very significant day in our lives. A day that we plan for with great enthusiasm and zeal. A Dry Day. Every year, on January 26 and August 15 and more or less on every other large event and festival, a dry day comes upon us with stern inflection.

With a creamy preparation like a Badami Chicken or an Afghani Chicken, white with almonds or cashews, an inexpensive red hits the spot. Above, Afghani kebabs are paired with a red Cabernet Sauvignon at Zaffran, Lower Parel.(Aalok Soni / HT Photo)
With a creamy preparation like a Badami Chicken or an Afghani Chicken, white with almonds or cashews, an inexpensive red hits the spot. Above, Afghani kebabs are paired with a red Cabernet Sauvignon at Zaffran, Lower Parel.(Aalok Soni / HT Photo)

In days gone by, the 10th of each month was celebrated as a Dry Day, because that was salary day for most lower-middle-class workers, and the idea was to prevent him from blowing up his monthly wages on booze.

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On this day, upmarket nightclubs, five-star hotel bars and foreign liquor shops would all dutifully remain closed. Meanwhile the local Aunty’s shops and bootleggers remained, of course, unofficial and open. Such is the hypocrisy of our lives.

“Our spices and flavours, including ginger, garlic and onion, come off well with an array of white wines. Most red wines bicker with jeera, coconut, dhania, turmeric and ginger.”

Even today, anyone who might want to have a drink legally needs to be armed with a liquor permit — which used to be issued to you for “medical reasons” and restricted your consumption to some bizarre one drink a week or so. Of course you, me and the prohibition department know how to get around that small inconvenience.

There was also a time when restaurants were permitted to serve alcohol only in closed rooms separated from the rest of the dining area, aptly called Permit Rooms. I think drinking out in the open, al fresco, is still technically illegal — as is having more than a certain, single-digit number of bottles in your home. But things are easier now. We can all enjoy our drinks freely in most parts of the city, and we all have our ways of stocking up.  

While most people now drink socially, habits vary. Among the lower-middle class (men), a few drinks after work and a hot, spicy non-veg meal is still an evening of sin. In middle-class India, vodka, whiskey, rum and beer, and brandy in the south, are still the go-to poisons.

Gin’s becoming swank. But amongst the middle-trying-to-be-upper-middle class, it has become a sort of statement to drink wine — and talk about it. Armed with as little knowledge as ‘White goes with fish and red with meat’, social moths impress, and guff, even though they can’t really tell the bouquet of a vin from a bouquet of rhododendrons.

But the fact is that wine-drinking is slowly seeping into our culture. If you drive through Nashik, the Loire Valley of Maharashtra, not only do you come across wineries but also small wine bars where white dhoti- and topi-clad locals sip from stemmed glasses. Some restaurants that serve western, nouvelle or “whatever you call that” cuisine maintain extensive wine lists that include imports as well as indigenous varieties. They are also armed to guide your choice of wines a propos your order.

Since the spicy taste of a wholesome Mughlai meal is still the most common choice for Indians eating out — and since the buds erupt with brew and the fizz of a lager can add a fiery insult to Indian food — the right kind of wine triumphs. But can you really pair wines with our rugged Indian cuisines? Of course you can, but you need to forget the rules the Europeans made up. So meats can go well with whites and fish with reds, in the Indian context.

The spices and flavours used in Indian cookery, including ginger, garlic and onion, come off well with an array of white wines, especially the more aromatic whites. Most red wines bicker with jeera, coconut, dhania, turmeric and ginger.  

The strong, tough flavour of say a Chicken Makhanwalla needs the big-flavoured, oaky, very fruity calibre of a white aromatic wine. A dry German Riesling or a white Châteauneuf-du-Pape, both easily available in Indian restaurants, harmonises well with most Indian food. As would a light, crisp and dry Pinot Grigio with plenty of mouth-watering acidity.

With a creamy preparation like a Badami Chicken or an Afghani Chicken, white with almonds or cashews, an inexpensive Red Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel or a simple Syrah hits the spot, or the combination of a Cabernet Shiraz.

With a fiery Chicken 65 or a coconut-based spicy south Indian curry, most red wines taste tougher than they are. Fire gets on well with not-too-sharp whites like an Australian Riesling or a Portuguese Vinho Verde.

With savouries like Bhajias and Samosas, most of the above whites are great, but if you want a red, a very light Côtes-du-Rhône could work.

As for me and my untrained palate, I think a No 7 Vinicola Port Wine goes well with everything. And if you want my advice, the thing that goes best with the likes of a Tandoori Chicken is... a Butter Naan.

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