印度也爱上了葡萄酒

On my first visit to India, in 2002, I met one of the country’s first wine writers, a young woman who told me that her friends would routinely ask her, “What’s the point of wine? Whisky gets you drunk so much quicker. How things have changed. Despite punitive taxation and mind-boggling regulation and paperwork, India now has a thriving wine culture – or at least its vast middle class and “upper crust (the name of an Indian glossy magazine) do.

我第一次去印度(India)是在2002年，当时我与该国一位年轻的女葡萄酒作家会了面，她说自己有一位朋友常常问一个问题“既然威士忌(Whisky)能让人醉得更快，那么喝葡萄酒的意义到底是什么呢？伴随着时光的飞逝，世事已经发生巨变。尽管税额高昂令人咋舌，法规公文也繁琐不堪，如今印度的葡萄酒文化已经相当繁荣——或者说至少大批的中产阶级和上流社会(upper crust)（该国有一本流行杂志也叫做《上流社会》）对葡萄酒有狂热的爱好。

Taxes and duties on imported wine are imposed by both national customs and the individual state. They are cumulatively so high that consumers can pay 10 to 12 times the initial cost of a bottle when they buy wine from one of India’s relatively small but growing number of wine retailers. A basic bottle of Jacob’s Creek, the leading imported brand, could, for example, easily cost the equivalent of ￡20 off a shelf, and many times more on a hotel wine list.

随着文化的推广，小型的葡萄酒零售店如雨后春笋般四处涌现，而消费者在进行购买时，付出的金额往往是出厂价的十到十二倍。以当地著名进口葡萄酒品牌杰卡斯(Jacob's Creek)为例，其某款入门级别的葡萄酒可以卖到二十英镑，而酒店里的售卖价格甚至是这个价格的数倍！如此高的价格，与高昂的各项税费有很大的关系，而印度海关和各个邦省(state)则是这些居高不下税费背后的既得利益者。

The hotels, in particular the big chains, played the crucial initial role in introducing Indians to wine, and they still largely provide the setting for the wine dinners sporadically organised by foreign wine producers trying to establish themselves. Chateau Margaux, for example, a first growth keen to repeat Lafite’s success in China, flew in Alain Passard of L’Arpège in Paris to design and cook a vegetarian dinner to go with their wines last December.

在印度，酒店（尤其是大型连锁集团的酒店）在推广葡萄酒中起着非常重要的作用，它们中的大多数如今仍然在为希望推广品牌的葡萄酒生产者提供葡萄酒晚宴(wine dinner)场地。去年十二月，作为一级庄园(first growth)的玛歌庄园(Chateau Margaux)与巴黎(Paris)拉派日(L’Arpège)餐厅的阿兰·帕萨(Alain Passard)合作，设计并举办了素食与玛歌庄园葡萄酒的搭配晚宴。此举是玛歌庄园长久计划的一小步——该庄园一直希望能够复制拉菲庄园(Lafite)在中国的成功。

Back in 2002 you could count the number of licensed restaurants independent of hotels on the fingers of one hand, even in Delhi and Mumbai. Today, the introduction of a much cheaper licence for establishments serving only beer and wine has encouraged many more cafés and casual eating places to offer wine. There is now sufficient interest in wine service for the most charismatic of young Indian sommeliers, Mandheep Singh, to have forsaken the dining room for a consultancy and the TV screen. But in general, Indians who want to sell wine have to submit to an expensive and cumbersome process originally designed for the distribution of spirits.

回想2002年，即便在德里(Delhi)和孟买(Mumbai)这样的城市，获准销售酒类且独立于酒店管辖之外的餐厅都少到屈指可数的程度，更不用说其他城市。而如今，由于申请销售啤酒与葡萄酒（仅限于此两类酒精饮料）执照的收费大幅降低，印度出现了越来越多提供葡萄酒的小餐馆和休闲饮食场所。实际上，葡萄酒服务是一个回报很高的领域，印度最具魅力的年轻侍酒师(Sommelier)曼迪普·辛(Mandheep Singh)在看到该行业的前景后，毅然决然地脱离餐饮而转向葡萄酒咨询与电视节目录制领域。不过总体来说，对于期望从事葡萄酒销售的印度人来说，想要获得销售酒精类饮料的资格，需要前期投入很高的费用并通过繁复的申请程序。

Until Indians were introduced to wine, a typical retail outlet for alcohol was a heavily guarded, steel-caged, grubby shop selling dubious spirits to even more dubious men. Initially, a major brake on the development of wine culture in India was the poor quality of storage conditions and transport for a liquid that is much more susceptible to heat damage than spirits and beer. But smart, well-lit, air-conditioned wine stores are beginning to proliferate in India’s newer shopping malls, affording women a chance to handle and buy bottles too.

在葡萄酒进入之前，印度的酒精类饮料售卖店的典型形象是戒备森严、钢窗铁门且昏暗肮脏，售卖的酒类来路不明，而购买者更是神秘兮兮。葡萄酒文化在这里的推广最初受阻是由于恶劣的存放环境和运输条件，因为相对于烈酒和啤酒来说，葡萄酒在保存与运输方面要求更高。而如今的情况大有不同：随着越来越多购物中心的兴建，越来越多的葡萄酒专卖店也随之出现，这些专卖店拥有智能的系统，良好的照明条件和通风设施，并且还能够令妇女有机会进行购买。

Wine has opened the door to social drinking for Indian women, who before its introduction into Indian society were expected merely to watch while their menfolk downed whisky in great quantities before a late dinner (although dinner invitations specifying “8.30pm for 11pm are by no means a thing of the past). Today wine and food are often consumed together, European style. In fact, as one Indian political economist friend put it to me, wine consumption can be regarded as a “signifier in Indian society, indicating that the consumer not only has a certain level of material wealth but that they also understand western mores.

由于葡萄酒，社交饮酒(social drinking)也终于为印度女性敞开了大门，而在此之前，女性参加社交活动时能做的仅仅是看着她们的男伴们边狂饮威士忌边等着“晚宴的开始（这里所谓的“晚宴，确实是非常地晚，因为邀请函上注明的时间常常是“晚上八点半到十一点）。如今的印度，葡萄酒与餐食的搭配已经成为常态，而且很有欧洲范儿(European Style)。实际上，在印度社会，人们认为饮用葡萄酒是一种“标志(signifier)，不仅标志着一个人雄厚的物质基础，还显示了其对西方文化更深的了解——一位印度政治经济学领域的朋友如是说。

What is remarkable is the speed with which India has gone from a country where a tiny handful of the very rich drank nothing but the most famous names in wine, to one in which thousands of young, well-travelled Indians are beginning to appreciate the nuances of a wide range of wines, both domestic and imported.

在印度，从最初只有极少数的超级富人只懂得喝最有名的葡萄酒，到现在成千上万走南闯北的年轻人开始懂得欣赏不同风格的进口和国产葡萄酒，其变化之快令人瞠目。

The founder and editor of the country’s leading wine magazine, Sommelier India, is a woman. Reva Singh saw her chance back in 2004, “when India had no wine culture. Today she has about 20,000 regular readers, and reports that even the whisky state of Punjab is being converted to the grape.

印度最主要的葡萄酒杂志叫做《印度侍酒师》(Sommelier India)，创始人兼主编是一位名叫雷法·辛(Reva Singh)的女士，其事业的开端可以追溯到“印度还只是葡萄酒文化沙漠的2004年。目前，雷法已经拥有两万名固定读者，并且告诉我印度最有名的威士忌之乡旁遮普省(Punjab)也已经开始将目光投向葡萄酒。

Wine bars, wine clubs and wine fairs are sprouting all over the country. But what of Indian wine? Its quality has slowly been improving, and it has the huge advantage of being less savagely taxed than imports. The founder of the most serious red wine producer, Kanwal Grover, died recently, but only after establishing Grover Reserve Bordeaux blend – made with the help of ubiquitous consultant Michel Rolland of Pomerol – as a seriously reliable Indian red.

各种葡萄酒吧、葡萄酒俱乐部和葡萄酒市场正在印度遍地开花，但是印度本地葡萄酒的命运如何呢？我认为印度国产葡萄酒的质量正在缓慢提升，并且其最大的优势在于税费低于进口葡萄酒。该国最严谨的葡萄酒厂的创始人坎瓦尔·格罗佛(Kanwal Grover)于近日去世，不过在去世之前，他在波美侯(Pomerol)著名酿酒顾问米切尔·罗兰(Michel Rolland)的帮助下完成了自己的作品——格罗佛珍藏级波尔多混酿葡萄酒(Grover Reserve Bordeaux Blend)，这款酒在印度有着良好的口碑。

But the current leader of the Indian winemaking pack is Sula, founded by Rajeev Samant, who returned from a career in Silicon Valley in the 1990s to found this dynamic wine producer in Nashik, Maharashtra, in a region which had long grown grapes for the table. This year Sula, now a tourist destination, will fill a total of 450,000 bottles and ship them to 20 countries. Sula’s reputation is founded on fresh, clean whites, especially the crisp Sauvignon Blanc that can seem like nectar in India’s climate.

不过，目前印度最居领先地位的酒厂是由拉吉夫·萨满特(Rajeev Samant)创立的苏拉(Sula)。拉吉夫曾在硅谷(Silicon Valley)工作，上个世纪九十年代回国，在马哈拉施特拉邦(Maharashtra)的著名鲜食葡萄产地纳施克(Nashik)建立了自己的酒厂。如今，已经成为著名旅游景点的苏拉酒厂产量达到四十五万瓶，产品在二十个国家有售。其产品以新鲜纯净的白葡萄酒最为著名，尤其是脆爽的长相思(Sauvignon Blanc)堪称印度气候风格所孕育出的甘露。

A week last Sunday Sommelier India organised The Great Indian Wine Tasting, assembling some of the country’s best-qualified palates to judge blind up to four wines submitted by a dozen of the best Indian wineries. The judges decided that, overall, Indian whites are better than the reds – although since storage conditions constitute wine’s greatest enemy after taxation in India, it may be that whites, generally sold younger than reds, have an inbuilt advantage.

《印度侍酒师》杂志不久前举办了最佳印度葡萄酒品尝会(The Great Indian Wine Tasting)，品尝会中要通过盲品从十二个印度最好的酒厂推选的样品中选出四款。评委的最终结果表明，印度的白葡萄酒总体来说要好于红葡萄酒。在印度，欠佳的存放条件是除高税费之外的葡萄酒的第二大敌人，考虑到这一点，该国的白葡萄酒常常为了保持质量而比红葡萄酒更早上市——我想这也是白葡萄酒能够比红葡萄酒表现得好的一个原因。

There is currently no effective wine law in India and therefore no controls other than cost on blending and labelling different wines. The outfit in charge of wine is known rather ominously as the Indian Grape Processing Board, but India is a recent recruit to the OIV (Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin), the international body for wine regulation and technical advancement, which bodes well.

目前印度没有行之有效的葡萄酒法规，因此在原料调配和酒标规范化方面没有什么监管，负责葡萄酒的部门是印度葡萄加工管理委员会(the Indian Grape Processing Board)——管理结果可想而知。不过印度现在已经成为了国际葡萄与葡萄酒组织(OIV,Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin)的新成员，这是个负责葡萄酒法规制定和技术发展的国际组织，因此加入它对其国产葡萄酒的规范化和质量提高一定有非常大的好处。

Already there is considerable technical input from abroad. Sula’s winemaker is Californian and the relatively new Fratelli operation is run by the ex-winemaker of Isole e Olena in Tuscany – although the special conditions in India’s low latitudes do call for specific expertise in tropical viticulture. All, however, are agreed that wine has finally arrived in India.

印度已经引进了大量的海外技术。苏拉酒厂拥有来自加利福尼亚(California)的酿酒师，并且采用了由托斯卡纳地区(Tuscany)奥莱娜小岛(Isole e Olena)庄园前任酿酒师施行的弗拉特利(Fratelli)酿酒法——不过，除了酿酒技术和人才之外，由于纬度较低的关系，我认为该国还需要引进一些在热带气候条件下种植葡萄的专业技术。不过总体来说，葡萄酒已经在印度这个神奇的国度落地生根。

Tasting notes on Purple Pages of JancisRobinson.com

欲查阅更多品酒记录，请访问JancisRobinson.com的紫色网页部分。

Pukka Picks

普卡(Pukka)之选

Chosen as best in a recent blind panel tasting organised by Sommelier India.

《印度侍酒师》杂志盲品中专家评选出的最佳葡萄酒

Best whites

最佳白葡萄酒

Fratelli Chardonnay

弗拉特利-霞多丽(Fratelli Chardonnay)

Fratelli Chenin Blanc

弗拉特利-白诗南(Fratelli Chenin Blanc)

Nine Hills Viognier

九峰-维奥尼(Nine Hills Viognier)

Reveilo Grillo

莱维-罗格里罗(Reveilo Grillo)

KRSMA Sauvignon Blanc

克里斯-玛长相思(KRSMA Sauvignon Blanc)

Sula Sauvignon Blanc

苏拉-长相思(Sula Sauvignon Blanc)

Big Banyan Sauvignon Blanc

大斑岩-长相思(Big Banyan Sauvignon Blanc)

Best reds

最佳红葡萄酒

Grover Cabernet Shiraz

格罗佛-解百纳西拉(Grover Cabernet Shiraz)

KRSMA Cabernet Sauvignon

克里斯-玛赤霞珠(KRSMA Cabernet Sauvignon)

Four Seasons Barrique Reserve Shiraz

四季-橡木桶珍藏系列-西拉(Four Seasons Barrique Reserve Shiraz)

Fratelli Sangiovese

弗拉特利-桑乔维赛(Fratelli Sangiovese)

Sula Rasa Shiraz

苏拉-拉萨系列-西拉(Sula Rasa Shiraz)

Rosé

桃红葡萄酒(Rosé)

Grover Shiraz

格罗佛-西拉(Grover Shiraz)

Sula Zinfandel

苏拉-增芳德(Sula Zinfandel)

Nine Hills Shiraz

九峰-西拉(Nine Hills Shiraz)

Sparkling

起泡酒

Zampa Brut

赞帕-天然起泡酒(Zampa Brut)

I’d happily drink Fratelli Chenin Blanc, made in a new wine region 140km south of Pune, whether in India or not. Available in the UK for ￡51.60 for six bottles (www.corkingwines.com, 01904 686123). Also available at Great Wines Direct (online), Bakerie, Troubadour Wines, Vivat Bacchus and Selfridges

我个人非常喜欢弗拉特利-白诗南，来自普纳(Pune)以南140公里的一个不知是否处于印度境内的新产区。在英国有售，六瓶价格为51.6英镑（网址：www.corkingwines.com，联系方式：01904 686123）。也可以在以下公司买到：佳酿直销(Great Wine Direct)（在线）、贝克雷(Bakerie)、图鲁巴多酒业(Troubadour Wines)、巴库斯(Vivat Bacchus)以及自家酒柜(Selfridges)。