delWine Excellence Awards: What it means to the youth of India?

The Pullman New Delhi Aerocity recently hosted the delWine awards and it was a momentous occasion for the Indian wine Industry. Organised by India’s wine guy Subhash Arora (founder of Delhi Wine Club and delWine magazine) along with Sourish Bhattacharyya (his achievements won’t really fit in these brackets) and Sonal Holland (India’s first Master of wine), these awards brought together wine connoisseurs, hoteliers, importers retailers from across the country. Without going into the technical details and nitty gritty of the wine and it’s industry workings, I’ll just focus on what it means to the youth of India.
The young generation of India across the metropolitan cities are showing a massive shift towards eating outside. Being economically more independent, their spending on Alcohol has also increased. The well traveled Indian desi note has an knowledge of wines and spirits not found in India before. This has opened up a market which is still in it’s nascent stage. With brands like Sula, Grover Zampa, York and Chandon setting up wineries in India, the future is going to see an huge explosion in wine consumption in the country.
The Indian brands have been winning quite a few accolades in competitions abroad. The time is now ripe for India to assert it’s dominance on the wine world and the old world producers will do well to keep their eyes peeled. The delWine excellence awards not only awarded the best wine lists and Sommeliers of the country, it also took special note of the importers and retailers. It’s usually easy to forget who did all the hard work of investing in the end.
The awards were associated with a 5 course 6 wine paired dinner. A dinner attended by nearly 300 people, but the most endearing part probably was the way Sommelier Kriti Malhotra took her service team through such an gargantuan task. The awards were preceded by a Wines of World showcase which had more than 130 types of wine on display. A showcase like this is something that is going to be extremely popular amongst the youth.
In the end, I would like to wish Subhash Arora Sir, Sourish Sir and Sonal Holland Ma’am all the best to the promotion of wine in the country. We, the youth look to experience an increased variety of wine in the country. Jai Ho