The centennial event of the Delhi Wine Club was organised at the Hotel Park Hotel, New Delhi. Himself a wine connoisseur, Rifaquat Mirza, the Executive Assistant manager of the hotel who orchestrated the event personally reports:

There are events and there are events and then there's coverage and there's coverage. Ask any wine lover or a hotelier or any PR person what a wine dinner is and though they may all have an "opinion" on this one they pretty much know what the format is and it is almost like a replayed template. Though the wannabes ( page 2 ½ I call them !) do get excited on their new found graduation into staring into a glass of liquid and then trying to describe it in all kinds of botanical-zoological-astronomical adjectives.

But what I will try and give you is the inside story or as it is more fashionably called the behind the scenes bits a la "making of the ….." calendar. 

It was one more of those informative, educative and entertaining lunches with Mr. Subhash Arora and there was this talk about doing a nice Italian wine dinner and as always we were " Delhi wine club ke liye kuch bhi karega".

But then on 13 th Jan there's a mail which said that the Delhi Wine Club would like to hold the 100 th event in our hotel and to quote Mr. Arora "..lets make it SPECIAL". And since we felt that if the Delhi wine club is making history we would love to be a part of it. 

What followed was days of discussions and Ankur Arora, the manager of Mist, our all day dining restaurant was made Chairperson of the organizing committee ( no such designation, but would be apt after all this was a very defining moment in the 5 year old club's life ). Chef Bakshish Dean respected and loved for his innovation, incredible culinary talents and for being a really nice guy put his might behind the menu and was ably supported by his chefs Gaurav. Sunil, Hirak and Nikhil.

We worked on the typical 4 course sit down menu format first but nah !..that's too formal said Subhashji. This was a celebration so we decided to have an ante room at Agni where we would do the customary registration and "welcome wine" and then move onto Mist for a grand affaire. The much acclaimed Mist Pizzas automatically made it to the menu and till date it does remain the hotel's signature dish.

And it was not only about making it fun; like all good hosts Mr. Arora wanted a larger choice for the gourmets. Some times one just gets stuck with exactly what you don't like in wine dinners and even the most candid among us use the word divine to describe the half cooked bovine !

And we had to match up to some really fine Tuscan wines from Fèlsina. It was not only about pairing but actually matching up to the wines. Though most of the recommendations came from Mr. Arora we had to retain the harmony between food and wine. Balancing flavours so that there would be no over dominance or that "watered down" effect with some really bland-well-plated-food.

An assortment of international cheeses and breads with our legendary chicken liver pate licked off melba toast, and the tomato – mozzarella combination at Agni did just the right trick of getting the juices flowing.

The salad was all about clean, crisp minimalism much like the aesthetics at the restaurant but the distinctiveness of each ingredient was achieved only by high expertise assembly line production and not mass production ( what ever that means!)

The pride with which our service staff serves pizzas the Italians would give them citizenship overnight. But still serving pizzas with consistent quality to 70 pax (yes the turnout was really heartening that evening) calls for culinary expertise.

It is at this time that the wine is mixing with the RBCs and the WBCs and suddenly the conversations get loud and it was heartening to see this body of elite wine lovers mingling and making new friends, cracking the same old jokes with old mates. Quite silently almost surreptitiously Giuseppe Mezzocolin from Fèlsina was working the floor; a hi here and a ciao there, and of course loving all the adoration he was receiving courtesy sanguis Jovis - "the blood of Jove ". I did not know this till that evening that Sangiovese is derived from that term. 

Everyone loved the compact but lip smacking spread the chefs had put up. And for some (actually three ladies) who thought we were not so veg-oriented, Chef Dean disappeared into the kitchen and conjured up an 'a la minute' pasta.

But I think the piece de resistance was the Trio of Mexican chocolate pudding, passion fruit cheese cake and fresh fruit tart. Each of them was a creation par excellence. Subtle yet individually crafted. Later on I discovered the secret behind the almost artificial looking perfect white chocolate cones – Nitin Sethi, our budding Chef under training had been working all night making each one individually, painstakingly. All I can say is that it was worth all the hard work, Nitin. Keep an eye on this boy, ladies and gentlemen.

The happiest person in the room was Ankur Arora who had conducted numerous briefings with all staff members, running through every single minute detail and always upping the ante. He decided to make a nice scroll menu just hours before show time though he had the original menus in place in the morning. And of course Shehzad Rashid, our newly recruited manager had the tough job of being the master sommelier for the evening. All's well when the wine does not end!

I glanced around the room at that point of time and saw around me a restaurant full of happy people and that's what I thought Delhi Wine Club has been so successful in achieving over the past few years; making people happy and making them drink wine to do so. 

And I must thank Mr. Arora for his kind gesture of lining up the hotel team and the entire restaurant gave them a standing ovation. Perfect ending to a perfect evening!