Column

Have you ever stopped to take stock of just how biased you are when it comes to wines? ‘Who, me?’ you query. ‘Yes. You, me, all of us. We are all snobs!’

No drum rolls to that exclamation. Just a silent moment of reminiscing and internal denial. Allow me to show you just where the snobbery starts. To help me highlight this better, here is a self-exam. Ask yourself these questions and see how many ‘Yeys’ and ‘Nays’ you count.
1You prefer wines with a cork over screw cap.
2You think French wines are the best in the world.
3You feel that red wines must be had with red meats.
4You maintain that Indian food can not be paired with wines at all.
5If Indian dishes are to be paired, only sweet wines work.
If you found yourself nodding in the affirmative for most of these questions, then you know what’s coming next. Lighten up! Life’s too short to be too strict. Take it from a purist (viz. me), I have been to the land of the Spartan vinos and it is every bit as boring as they fable it to be.

Shucks! For it is a real fun beverage and we are missing out, really. For your information, screw caps do not mean a lesser wine; it just means alternative closure. Sure it may have a general implication that the wine is meant for quicker consumption (as opposed to long term holding) but a clear majority of wines sealed under cork also belong to the same category. Not everything in cork ages just like not everything in a heavy bottle automatically matures.

The French are good no doubt but the rest of the world is good too. Pretty darned good. To think that every expensive or commemorative bottle must originate in France is to believe that good pasta can only be found in Italy. Hmmm, on second thought, maybe that’s a bad example. Try butter chicken and Delhi? Nope, still not the convincing clincher.

Ok, pretty women and Europe….? I give up! But you get the point, stereotypes are just that. Anything is possible, even pretty girls serving lovely Italian pasta alongside delicious Indian curries in a far-flungNew Worldisland country!

As for pairing, remember, your mind is not as stoic as you would like to believe. How your day has been going, whom you fought with all affects how the brain perceives food and wine. Tactile is a sense and just like our other reflexes, it is easily affected by stimuli of all sorts. A pairing then is more a matter psychological and purely flavour-centric. For what the rules are worth, remember that the idea is to pair like-minded flavours of intensity and type.

Meat is not a flavour, the accompanying sauce (or curry) is.
The problem lies in our perception, considering wine to be a science when it is art really. Look at it through the lens of aestheticism and subjectivity and you will find a more pleasant outlook emerge.