One of India’s top importers of wine, Vishal Kadakia is known as the ‘wine storyteller’ in Indian wine circles. For him, wine is not a product, it is a living thing around which stories have been woven. To enjoy that wine, you must listen to its story. He has more than a few to tell, usually around a table, while tasting wine.
In his guest column, Vishal describes how, to love wine, you must give it time to make a place in your soul. There are no shortcuts to understanding wine.
I started drinking wine when I was in my engineering college in 1993. At the time it was just another type of alcohol to me, like beer or Old Monk. I didn’t really understand much about wine nor did or care too much about it. I enjoyed drinking it occasionally, so I did. Fast forward to 1997 during my Master’s programme in Boston. My roommate and I would buy tetrapaks of wine to drink ($5.99 for a 2-litre white Zinfandel). I’m not really sure why, but I know we grew to like it. Once in a while, we would buy a bottle for $10 and it was a mini treat. In 1999, I moved to Memphis to take up my first job assignment. I made some European friends who were from Memphis University and usually drank wine. So with some dollars in my pocket from the new job, I began exploring wines from $10 and going as high as $20, but never beyond.
Drinking my very first Burgundy, Savigny Le Beaune from Simon Size in Paris, 2003. Photo: Vishal’s archives
I really began to understand wine in 2000, a good seven years after the time I began drinking it. When I look back now, that seven-year period was the most important time of my wine-drinking life. With the luxury of time on my hands, I moved from not caring about very much about wine to becoming very curious about it; this wine learning was a gradual progression. in 2000, a dinner at a French restaurant with some nice wines raised my curiosity levels higher, and this prompted me to do a wine course in 2002. The course gave me formal knowledge of wines. Then in 2003, came a trip to Burgundy. This sealed it. This was the moment when I knew I wanted to work with wine.
Those 10 years, from 1993 to 2003, turned out to be very important to me. There is usually a similar period in every wine enthusiast’s life during which he learns to appreciate and understand wine slowly, without any need for competitive wine learning. Today’s generation wants to go from 0 to 100 in an instant; they feel that by doing multiple courses, they will ‘grow’ into liking wine – or even worse! – turn into instant wine experts. But I have seen that this is far from the truth. This form of rapid learning ends up mere degrees or qualifications on a resume. That’s it. I draw the analogy of a young graduate finishing college and jumping into an MBA straight away without any hands-on business know-how. He might be great in theory but zero in implementation.
Sharing a Rosemount Shiraz with friends at home in Boston, 2002. Photo: Vishal’s archives
Wine is a ‘touch, feel and taste’ kind of a subject. Unless you have drunk enough, travelled enough and given considerable time for appreciation, you will never get under the skin of the subject of wine. You will never be able to move beyond the ‘fruit, tannins, acidity’ terminologies. They say that you never really learn a new language until you start dreaming in it. Wine is like that – if the mind does not transport you to the vineyards, the winery; until you begin to grasp the intricacies of winemaking and terroir; feel that indescribable madness at the first whiff of the aromas of a wine, the thrilling anticipation of its first taste, you have no business calling yourself a wine expert… (but a wine learner – yes, that is a possibility you can learn to live with).
The wine world is very humbling and can take you from 100 to zero in a jiffy (try doing a blind tasting).
Never the opposite.
About Vishal Kadakia
Vishal is a wine aficionado whose passion for wines led him to start Wine Park, a company that imports and distributes fine wines throughout India and Maldives. He has done his WSET Level 2 and is a Master of Science from University of Massachusetts. He worked in Boston for 8 years before relocating to India.
An importer for 9 years, Vishal’s vision is to make wine more accessible by educating the end-consumers. He launched Wine Kart, a website designed to make wine knowledge easy and lively, including details of the wide selection of wines imported by Wine Park. He recently launched an Indian wine, The Daily Dose which has a funky label showing the winemaking process.
Vishal is an avid runner, having run several marathons, and is also the director in his family-run business.
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