A chink on your table

An Indian wine entrepreneur in Australia adapts the best of France to suit palates back home.

The point of being third-generation wealthy is that you can get to do pretty much what the rest of India can only dream about. Drive a Ferrari, perhaps. Own a chateau in France. Or pick up a vineyard in Australia especially to "design" wines for India.

If Natasha Oberoi plumbed for the last, you'd be forgiven for thinking that it was on account of her DNA. Dad P R S "Biki" Oberoi did, after all, reign over East India Hotels with its Oberoi and Vilas luxury properties around the world. This would then just be an extension of the family enterprise, no different from a kitchen garden extension, right?

Roy Moorfield sets you right on that one. In India to run tastings for Natasha Oberoi's Chinkara Wines, he said, "Mr Oberoi had made it clear to Natasha that the wines had to be of a very high quality if they were to be served in any Oberoi hotel." Uh oh.

So Natasha did what anyone passionate about a new trade would "" she hired Roy Moorfield as her wine director, and between the two of them, they were able to find Garry Farr's vineyard in Victoria.

And she even got Robin Querre from Saint Emilion to make the wines. "He doesn't have time for beginners," said Moorfield, "but when Natasha asked him, he agreed like a kitten!"

It helped that Moorfield has lived in Hong Kong, has a Chinese wife, and consults with Cathay Pacific on wines (and yes, certain wines don't take aviation vibrations too well, and spoil as a result). And since the agenda was to make wines that could be exported to other parts of Asia, he began the blendings in 2002 for wines that have since begun to add their own spicy notes at Oberoi restaurants.

The initial target was modest "" 500 cases of Chinkara wine. "Soon after we began," says Moorfield, "Natasha had her two babies, and Chinkara was, well, a little less high on her priority."

But he reports that the wine entrepreneur is now getting her hands down and dirty again, and predicts a burst of growth for Chinkara.

The wines are available at the Oberoi and Vilas hotels, and also at the group's Trident Hilton properties, as well as Park properties. With growth beyond the current 2.5 per cent on the anvil, however, expect more hotels to pitch for the label "" though the retail buyer might have to wait a wee-bit longer.