A whisky drinker cannot go through life without drinking Black Label. A Champagne lover cannot not drink Moet et Chandon or Dom Perignon. Similarly, if you like Australian wines, Green Point of Victoria, owned by LVMH has to be on your tasting list of bubbly, Chard, Pinot and their regal Shiraz. Therefore, when a tasting offer came from Sulakshna Pathak, Branding Head and Ashwin Deo, the head honcho of Moet Hennessey in India, it was an offer we could not refuse.

Australian wines with Italian food? Why not, we said. Surely, Australians eat a lot of Italian food and they couldn't be all drinking Spumante, Chiantis, Valpolicellas or Brunellos with it. Radisson Hotel with whom we have had an excellent experience in the past with their Italian cuisine were very obliging and ready to organize another dinner for us. When I sat down with their wine connoisseur GM Ronnie Lobo, F & B Director Avneesh Mathur and the team of chefs to discuss the menu and do the wine pairing, I knew we were in a for a treat. We have had many new members since May 2003 when we had our 19th event and the Gurgaon Chapter of the Delhi Wine Club did not even exist then.

Our 56th event was really the brainchild of Ranjan Pal, the President of Gurgaon Chapter who was keen to have their 3rd event at a place near Gurgaon; due to the sadistic tax regime on imported wines in Haryana, it is not practical to drink good wine in a restaurant there unless someone else pays the exhorbitant prices. And we have to pay for ourselves at these dinners!

The full house we saw for this evening was on the cards. The excellent food and the variety offered as you can see from the Menu below was also expected. But we had a very good experience with their service too. Returning after 36 events in other 5-star hotels and fine dining restaurants where we had organized our dinners, we realized how much superior Radisson is in this department when compared with most of those restaurants (Maurya-excepted!) The team effort under the leadership of Ronnie amply reflected their service quality.

Every dish was done to perfection including and especially the lamb shank (soup failed to impresss, though). Part of the reason the lamb was the king of all dishes could be due to the accompanying Shiraz which was really the Sartaj of all the wines served. The deep dark red beauty from Victoria was full bodied, luscious, slightly spicy with black pepper notes and with sweet vanilla oak. The mouthfeel was excellent, aftertaste was fairly long and the tannins got tamed deliciously by the lamb proteins. This was one occasion when I shrugged off my inhibition with red meats and I am glad I did.