Delhi Wine Club celebrated Five
Years with a bon vivant's afternoon at the Orient Express
Restaurant, in the Hotel Taj Palace on May 20. H.E.
Jorge Heine, Ambassador of Chile, who was present with
his wife Norma, writes about his experience.
As
a voracious reader, I was brought up on Agatha Christie's
mysteries. Hercule Poirot held a special fascination
for me, as did my imaginary train rides on the Orient
Express. After a long hiatus, during which I read few
mysteries, I have now rediscovered them. P.D. James,
the "queen of classic crime", is holding a
special sway on me these days, and I await with eager
anticipation each one of her books. Commander Adam Dalgliesh,
her Scotland Yard poet detective, is a Poirot for our
times, and both his riddles and his complex love life
make for fascinating reading. Her latest book, The
Lighthouse, was a special treat. I also like Ruth
Rendell, Dorothy Sayers (the founding mother of them
all) and Elizabeth George. Ian Rankin, so widely praised
for his psychological insights, I have found more difficult
to crack, but I will keep trying. It would seem then,
that, for me at least, it is English women writers who
hold the key to that apparent oxymoron, "an enjoyable
murder mystery".
It is for that reason, among others,
that I was so delighted when Subhash Arora, the founder,
mentor and driving force of the Delhi Wine Club, kindly
invited me to attend the fifth birthday of the DWC at
The Orient Express, the famous restaurant at
the Taj Palace Hotel, so widely praised for its European
cuisine, and so evocative of the fabled world of European
trains in the twenties and thirties so well captured
by Christie in her 1934 book, and later in the 1974,
star-studded Sidney Lumet film by the same name featuring
Albert Finney and Ingrid Bergman
Restaurants, invented in France in
the eighteenth century, serve a purpose quite beyond
the ostensible one of selling food. Sitting at the right
table in a good restaurant means creating a world of
your own, one in which nothing matters but the food,
the wine, and the conversation. Not to have to worry
about anything else is what makes dining out so different
an experience from dining at home. It is also why mobile
phones have wrought havoc with it.
As trains create a self-contained world
of their own as well, the idea of a restaurant in a
train is a tried and tested one, and one of my best
memories of restaurants in Ann Arbor, Michigan (a great
college town, though not particularly known for its
gastronomic landscape), where I spent a glorious summer
in 1976, is one of another variation on the same theme,
an establishment by the name of The Train Station,
set up in the refurbished remains of an abandoned railway
station.
Though I had heard much about it, and
I visit the Taj Palace frequently, I had never actually
dined at The Orient Express, and I must say
it lived up to its reputation. Albeit somewhat delayed
because of a little domestic accident of my wife Norma,
we made it in due course and enjoyed every minute of
it.
It was especially gratifying to see
my colleague Francis Moloi, the South African High Commissioner,
and his wife Misiwe, and so many loyal members of the
Club, though we missed Sourish Bhattacharyya, who I
am told was in Hong Kong on vacation with his family.
To have the restaurant exclusively for ourselves was
also a special treat.
The
prawn soup (in the fancy language of menuspeak, "Fumet
of Langoustine enriched with coral butter and cognac")
was the best I have had in a long time, and the rest
of the "journey" was certainly up to par.
The "Spotted Tiger prawns with mint and bergamot
oil" was given the 5-star rating by Norma who,
I must confess, is a shellfish expert. She found them
crisp and succulent.
The five wines we had were not only
delicious but also pared very well with the food. Chablis
Premier Cru from Long de Paquit was dry, crisp, fresh
and well balanced. I noticed everyone loved the Cabernet
Franc from Zorgvliet. But the piece de resistance
was the last wine, the Super Tuscan Promis from Gaja.
With rounded tannins and a good balance it was smooth
on the palate and I noticed members leaving only after
finishing off the bottles organized by Subhash. If one
has any doubts about preferring a white wine in summer,
this was a fine example of how much difference proper
selection and serving temperature can make to the flavour
of red wine. It was a perfect match for the main course,
the chicken dish.
Norma and I travel quite a bit, so
that to be able to spend a quiet weekend in Delhi is
something we treasure. "Quiet", however, does
not mean locking ourselves up at home. We enjoy lunches
and dinners with friends, perhaps more than the week-end
sight-seeing one is supposed to engage in while posted
in India—by definition for a limited time, in
a country-cum-continent where there is so much to see,
and where every minute should be taken advantage for
those purposes, or a least so the reasoning goes.
It is not something easy to convey
to others. When my son Gunther, living in faraway Chile,
asks me what I have been doing with myself, the response,
"I went to this great lunch on Tuesday" does
not impress him, and he keeps asking about what he would
presumably consider more exciting endeavors. I still
have to do a tiger safari, and I suppose that would
count among the latter, but in the meantime, recharging
the batteries by spending a few week-ends at home and
socializing is fine by us.
The space created by the DWC, in which
one is able to savour fine wines with good food and
stimulating company is thus much appreciated. A key
challenge for New Delhi as it gears up for the 2010
Commonwealth Games is to create a truly world class
city. Delhi has the history, the size, the architecture
and the cultural and intellectual underpinnings to make
such an aspiration a legitimate one. Nonetheless, it
has much to catch up on other fronts, including its
infrastructure and the availability of many amenities
that are taken for granted elsewhere, like a glass of
good wine, when and where one wants it, at a reasonable
price.
There
were 75 wine clubs in Johannesburg, a city half the
size of Delhi, when I served in South Africa in the
nineties, so there is much room to grow in this field,
but the main point is that it has started. Harold Wilson
famously said that a week is a long time in politics.
Five years is a short time in the life of a club, but
not an insignificant one. The fact that it has grown
from strength to strength shows that it has filled an
important need in a city that is already the capital
of the Global South.
Happy birthday, DWC, and keep up the
good work!
Jorge Heine
Jorge Heine is the ambassador of
Chile to India, a wine lover, and an honorary member
of the Delhi Wine Club - editor.
<His
Excellency missed out on tasting a couple of very pleasant
aperitif wines with finger foods as he got delayed.
Viña Cascarela Verdejo 2006 DO Rueda from Bodegas
Alberto Gutiérrez was a perfect wine for the
afternoon. Very fresh, crisp and with citrus flavour,
the Verdejo varietal has been a true find in NW Spain
during the last 20 years. Judging from members' reaction
and my own assessment during the last 2-year tastings,
this varietal and label will satisfy many thirsty palates
in India.
Silver Myn Rose 2005 from Zorgvliet
had been gifted by the South African High Commission
for tasting. Rose has not been members' favourite in
the past. But this wine was polished off with instant
refills even before I had a chance to have a sip. But,
from my previous tasting, I remembered the strawberry
and spicy nose carrying through into the flavour. The
cleverness with which, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon,
Cabernet Franc and Merlot have been blended in this
dry wine show well on the palate.
H.E. decided to add to the birthday
celebrations interesting, by hand carrying 3 wine bottles
to be gifted to members. Tusha Gupta, Shravani Dang
and Rakesh Talwar received a bottle each from Mrs. Norma
Heine.
He was also generous enough to announce
a gift of two cases of wine to continue with the celebration.
We shall celebrate another evening with the Heines soon.>
Subhash Arora
