Who would have guessed? A 28 year old sommelier from Burlington, Ontario in Canada, sitting across from you at the bar in the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai, India? India’s first foriegn female sommelier, as the Toronto Star writer claims in her piece on India uncorks its finest . I’d certainly like to raise a toast to Linsay’s spirit to experience India and its world of wines. May more such spirits venture forth from corporate Canada as well to experience the opportunity that India promises for practically every Canadian industry or business.
Caroline Eden the writer has penned an evocative picture of India through the eyes of a tourist out to explore India’s new found thirst for wine. This is a part of a series of articles featured in the October 2nd issue of the Toronto Star, celebrating India on the occasion of it’s Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday.
Canada’s wine country can take a note of inspiration from this piece to start exploring the potential that India has for Ontario’s own. India’s affluent [those earning >US $117,650 per year in terms of PPP], according to a McKinsey study will reach a figure of 24 million by 2025, which will be greater than the population of Australia today. And increasingly, the affluent tend to gravitate towards the wine bottle rather than hard liquor during parties these days in India. According to Stanford grad turned wine trailblazer Rajeev Samant in Mumbai, the market will double every three years. Pretty decent for Candian winemakers to take a whiff of that market today. Lindsay’s words on Indian wines ‘It’s the new world wines that work best’, could well serve as comment on the market outlook as well.
Rmagine 