To many people wine education means only a formal course that gets one a diploma at the end and perhaps helps them in their jobs or careers, but to us at the Indian Wine Academy it means something else and beyond, as is best explained by a couple of several mails received last week, acknowledging our contribution to wine education.
 Every once in a while some traditionalist points out that as an Academy we are not doing a great job since we are not into formal wine programs or conduct courses leading up to some diplomas or foreign certification. We have never claimed that we do!
Some of what we do is reflected in the following couple of mails received last week-one from a renowned Executive Chef from Australia, who has been the page 3 personality for years and another from someone in California; both catching me by surprise when I was visiting Nashik and made my day. They also made me reflect the style of education we are imparting through the Indian Wine Academy which besides publishing delWine, is a private organisation offering consultancy professionally including short wine educational programmes.
‘I just wanted to share with you that your news letter is the MOST read and considered on my list of news feeds. You keep us up to date and informed on all the crucial issues that concern not only wine drinkers, but sophisticated consumers in this great country. Please, keep up the good work. With love and respect- Bill Marchetti Corporate Executive Chef for Spaghetti Kitchen Italian Restaurants: Paninidia Foods Ltd.’ is first such letter.
It has been our objective to educate people throughout the world about the wine industry in India and as Marchetti says in his highly encouraging mail, we like to keep our viewers or members of the Academy as we loosely call them, informed about the crucial issues. We do not react to personalities even when they are critical about our style of education and always publish their comments, unless they are personal attacks on any an individual.
Another letter from one Daniel Shamir also enlightens on our style of education. Dan writes, ‘I am a third year law student at the University of San Diego School of Law in San Diego, California. This past semester I wrote a paper for my international trade law class on the Indian Wine Industry. I featured several articles from your blog, and I wanted to thank you for your fantastic insight and extensive and thorough reporting on the Indian wine industry.’
We get several such laudatory mails but I am too embarrassed to talk about them-suffice it to say that we are on a different path of education-not the conventional method of education, though we pioneered conducted educational sessions at wine shows, corporate tastings and the usual making if restaurant wine lists, hotel staff training, seminars for hotel management institutes, most of them at nominal charge. In short, our efforts are focused on educating consumers at different levels.
I should also take the opportunity to advise thousands of our viewers that I believe it is the consumer who needs to be educated-in an informal setting. But we do offer consultancy to a limited number and are unable to supply free surveys, reports and God-knows what all we are asked to furnish free of charge, including compilation of the treasure of information already on the website.
We do have some interesting plans of education. Keep on reading delWine (let us know if you are not receiving the 5-6 times a month first and most respected eNewsletter in India) and keep on visiting our website too get education and knowledge about the Wonderful World of Wine-a la Indian Wine Academy.
Subhash Arora |
