Oenophiles love to surround wine with impenetrable jargon — just look at the word they use to describe themselves! Magandeep Singh, has some down-to-earth answers
What are your recommendations for the novice?
Assume nothing, expect even less. Forget about brands and prices; just listen to your senses. If you feel like another sip, the wine is good; if not, change it.
Wine tastes different when paired with food ... how do tasters get a sense of that?
‘Hit and trial’ is as precise as the science of wine and food pairing can ever get. This is more a personal journey of discoveries rather than a collective statistical consensus. To me, it is always wine and mood first. If you like both, the wine and the dish, then you will enjoy them together. Just so long as the enjoyment of one doesn’t distract from the enjoyment of the other. Wine and food then is not as much a marriage as it is perhaps a flat-sharing relationship.
(This story appears in the 06 November, 2009 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)