Curries in your vineyard

says pairing Indian dishes with wine is no longer a big deal.

If you believe in arranged marriages, planned holi-days and rules, you are (possibly) not going to be with it when it comes to a big foodie trend "" pairing Indian food with wine. Because, well, having a samosa with a Chenin Blanc is about breaking rules.

Informality, of course, rules everywhere from corporate dress code to haute cuisine. But nowhere is it starker than in the till-now formulaic world of wine.

White wine with fish, red with game, and only gewurztraminer, the equivalent of a lychee sherbet if you ask some, with "curry". Now, throw the rule book out. Try a Cotes du Rhone with chicken curry (cooked better than Shilpa Shetty's, we'd suggest) for some smart dining.

Wine, even French, is fast losing its mystique, though some would call it pompousness. And perhaps nowhere as much as in emerging markets like India "" though there are others like China, where sales are higher (one glass for our one teaspoon per person) but refinement, if you like, lower.

In India, such democratisation has resulted in a happy but unlikely marriage; a union decried even a decade ago by "critics" who told us how their "red" was completely killed by a Kerala prawn curry!

That was before New World and desi chic took over. For the last couple of years, Indian cuisine restaurants in London and New York and trendy metros have been experimenting wildly with their wine lists. At Tabla in New York, every India-inspired dish is paired with an interesting wine.

In Chicago, Alpana Singh, possibly the only woman sommelier of Indian origin, has demonstrated creative possibilities with Indian dishes. And when the talented Iqbal Wahhab and Vivek Singh wrote their The Cinnamon Club Cookbook four years ago, they made it a point to suggest wines with every recipe.

Indian cuisine restaurants in India is another story. Till recently not many really cared about any pairing "" as long as there was enough Black Label, before. The last one year has seen a dramatic change. It is now common to go to a restaurant in Delhi or Mumbai or Bangalore and find that all the tables have ordered wine.

Manjit Gill, ITC's corporate chef, points out that wine sales in Indian restaurants have been going up manifold; up by 30-40 per cent last year.

"Despite the fact that oriental food is traditionally not accompanied by wine, wine by the glass does very well," he adds. A growing middle class, more aware, is obviously behind the change, helped by restaurants going all out to push revenues with better selections, better prices and better service.

A major push has also come from foreign wine companies. Bodies like Sopexa and VinItaly have not only been conducting training sessions for F&B professionals but also lunches and dinners for consumers, where it is suitably demonstrated that quality wine can indeed wash down Indian spices.

Indian cuisine (Bengali, coastal, Punjabi but also Indian-Chinese) is a favourite for such experiments because obviously that's where the mass market lies.

At Dhaba, a charming restaurant at the Claridges, New Delhi, the haunt of the likes of Rahul Gandhi, they hadn't opened a bottle of wine in several years. The staff didn't know how, the customers didn't want any. But Sopexa working to "demystify French wine" in India, decided to run an experimental promotion with a qualified sommelier making suggestions to guests.

"On the first day itself, 4-5 bottles were sold," says Rajeev Singhal, India head. As a group of journos subsequently went through exquisite pairings with Dhaba food, no one could find fault with the bubbly over tandoori prawns.

At Masala Art, on the other hand, chef Hemant Oberoi has prepared a whole menu paired with top labels from France and Chile, Germany and Spain.

And everyone from Konkan Cafe to Dumpukht (where the slow cooking goes especially well with quality wines) to even standalones like the O Calcutta chain of restaurants, is flaunting "good matches".

But a few words of advice: first, as Singh suggests, the cuisine is not really suited to complex (and expensive) wine. Go for the medium bracket. Second, as Robert Joseph, a wine writer with over 28 "guides" to his name, points out, "the more chilli that is used and the fattier/creamier the sauce, the harder the job of the wine."

Unlike French or European cuisines where wine is matched according to the primary ingredients, in India this is complicated since the fish, meat or veggie is usually drowned in a medley of flavours.

Everyone has their own theories. Indian sommelier Magandeep Singh's pet one is that we must match wine not with flavours but moods and occasions, and that's fair too. But if you go by Joseph, who has also instituted the International Wine Challenge, the biggest wine competition in the world, here are some basics: wine with tannin and less fruit goes least with "chilli-influenced" food.

"Sadly for people who want to show off by buying a big-name wine, one of the wines that fits this description best is classic red Bordeaux, including some of the priciest examples. Some Italian reds like Chianti and Barolo are similarly handicapped, but there are plenty of fruitier, softer reds such as Pinot Noir from Burgundy, Chile or New Zealand, Cotes du Rhone, Shiraz from Australia and some Zinfandel from California."

Joseph suggests white wine "" Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, Verdejo from Rueda in Spain or a Riesling from Germany "" to go with Indian food.

So what are you having with the biryani tonight?