A packed house enjoyed exclusive Gaja wines at a memorable dinner at the Oberoi Gurgaon says Arun Batra.

After a long and hot summer during which many of our members took the opportunity to travel to cooler climes , the Gaja wine dinner at the Oberoi Gurgaon was the first big ticket event of the second half of the year. We have had in the past been fortunate to sample a few of Gaja’s high quality wines but to have an entire dinner built around the Gaja masthead was a wine lovers dream as far as I was concerned.

And I was not alone in my views –the response of members to the early bird offer was overwhelming - the evening was overbooked and for the first time in the history of the Delhi Wine Club, the Club offered to pay members Rs 500 a head if they cancelled. Such lollipops were brushed aside as not a single cancellation was received – leading to the indefatigable Subhash Arora having to, at the last moment, make a dash across to the hotel to cajole the Oberoi to include another table of 8 .

Gaja is a name which is up there with the best of Italian wineries-the owner Anjelo Gaja is a fourth generation winemaker and oversees his winery in Barbaresco and his vineyards in Piedemont , Montalcino and Bolgheri. Anjelo Gaja is said to have pioneered single vineyard wines in Piedemont and is best known for his flagship product - the Barbaresco.

This dinner of the Delhi Wine Club also marked a watershed in the history of the Club in as much as for the first time the Club had opened its doors to commercial sponsorship- Carl F Bucherer luxury watches was on the masthead for the evening courtesy their Indian marketing arm Ethos. There was quite some lively discussion during the evening on the whole question of sponsorships but across the board the feeling was that with costs of wine and food going up , sponsorship was the only way forward to enable us to maintain the high standards of wine ,food and ,equally importantly, service that we have grown accustomed to over the years and yet get a five course meal with 5 wines for Rs 2500.

We started the evening with the Gaja Rossj-Bass Chardonnay Langhe DOC 2009 –  a wine named after Anjelo Gaja’s daughter Rossanna – an aromatic blend of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc with reasonable fruit on the palate and a crisp finish. A versatile wine, which combined well with the smoked salmon canapés and the tomato and feta bruschetta, this was well appreciated by the members.

Onto to the sit down section of our evening next where the Oberoi showcased its culinary skills with an array of appetizers. The Prosciutto was of high quality and the Ceviche of shrimp and calamari with mango salsa had our members raving . The appetizers had been paired with the Gaja Promis Ca’macaranda IGT 2008 – a supple berry rich wine owing its smoothness to the predominance of Merlot in the blend.

Normally the flagship wine of the evening comes along with the main course but curiously the Gaja Babaresco DOCG 2007 was paired along with the soup course – a mushroom soup with porcini foam in this case. The wine did not disappoint its premiere billing and there were many who wished they could get their hands around a refill, which alas was not forthcoming as we had to keep a balance between quantity and cost – keep in mind this wine retails for around 150 Euros in Europe!! However, it was really a wine to remember - 100% Nebbilo – a multi-layered nose of spice and fruit, a supple palate with a good acid and tannin balance.

A champagne sorbet followed accompanied by the sponsors presentation on their luxury range of watches - it did somewhat take the focus away from the wine and the food leading a member on my table to suggest that the commercial presentations of sponsors should be dealt with during the aperitif session leaving the sit down dinner environment to be wine led.

The main course was paired with the 2004 and 2006 vintages of the Gaja Pieve Santa Restituta Brunello de Montalcino DOCG – both rich and expressive wines with impressive balance and a long finish. If I was asked to choose which one was better, I’d go for the 2004 vintage which had a timeline head start over the 2006 and so was more rounded and developed. I ordered the Norwegian Salmon in preference to the chicken and was pleasantly surprised to find both the red wines equally at home with my choice.

Whilst we negotiated the dessert platter, our chief guest HE  Giacomo Sanfelice , Ambassador of Italy did the honours by picking the sponsors lucky draw – Mukesh and Suparna Malhotra won two out of the three prizes and trotted off home merrily with their prizes of a dessert wine from Sauternes and a Leoville Barton- the best combo for Malhotras to celebrate his birthday. Ann Ballotti won a mechanical watch winder worth Rs.15,000. Now, she may have to buy  a few of these watches costing a few lakhs to use the machine!

The evening lived up to its big ticket billing – not a single member was a last minute no show – and the wines served to underscore Anjelo Gaja’s reputation as one of the leading winemakers in Italy. However to me, it was indeed encouraging to see how for a recently opened hotel ,the Oberoi Gurgaon rose to the occasion to deliver food and wine service on par with the best in theNCR. With the continued support of Kapil Chopra and Prashant Gupta , I am sure the Oberoi Gurgaon will emerge as a strong supporter of the Delhi Wine Club and we look to having many more memorable evenings at this beautiful venue.

Arun Batra is a Delhi based  food and wine enthusiast and a long time member of the Delhi Wine Club