While the consumption of Indian wines is soaring, Robert Joseph, founder le Grand Noir, throws light upon the future of wines going parallel with the digital revolution, says Palak Sharma
Robert Joseph did not enter the wine industry by accident. His parents ran a restaurant and the 14-year old Joseph was surrounded by wine bottles of different origin and flavours in his childhood — which influenced him hugely. Gradually, while growing up he fell in love with wines. He also picked up the dynamics of wine service while spending time at his parents hotel.
He spent six years in Burgundy where he learnt about the art of wine making. Thereafter, he came back to United Kingdom and commenced Wine International Magazine and parallely started contributing for Sunday Telegraph. Joseph has 25 books to his credit which talk about the wine sector.
He has made an important contribution in the wine industry and feels that technology is going to take over through artificial intelligence. It can analyse the DNA of the person and decided the wine that suits them best and also other probable options that they can like.
However, Joseph is not just a wine connoisseur and producer. His newest book, Future of Wines which hits the bookstores next year will highlight the importance of artificial intelligence.
The essential part of the book is that it will feature every nuance in the context of drinks and their ingredients which will form the future of wine.
He has also chaired the london International Wine Challenge that began as the biggest wine tasting competition in the world. But, 12 years ago, he sold the competition and the magazine as he reckoned that he could dispense his experience to people after two significant observations. Firstly, about 99.9 per cent of people who invest in vineyards or wine trade do so to make extra profit.
‘‘After chairing the london International Wine Challenge I was curious about finding out why people chose wines that never won any competitions. Deep down it convinced me of the need to learn about people’s participation in wine consumption,’’ he informs.
Having travelled to myriad regions to nail the wine game, he feels that India is yet to discover the finest quality of vineyards.
He asserts, ‘‘India had a great start with wines. But, soon after many individuals and groups started to invest for all the wrong reasons in wine business as people who have no interest in wines are producing them without any knowledge.”
He explains that wine is not a complicated drink but one has to up their knowledge before producing for his audience. Despite having contemporary players and promotions in the past decade or more, Sula Vineyards currently has 65 per cent share in the Indian wine sector. The remaining 35 per cent, has an amalgam of novices or business moguls.
Joseph is chalking out strategies to conduct informative session with Indians on learning about grapes and its varieties. But, the process is at an embryonic stage.
He apprises, “I am planning to indulge in an educative activity for Indians next year in which I am trying to combine simple education with wine. There is a set vocabulary for people in wine trade and I am trying to teach people only the relevant words, which I have fixed at 12, that they need to know.”
Asked about his opinion on wine tourism he says, ‘‘It's a very dangerous tradition even though Sula has got it right. The thing about it is that wine is not going to be a destination. For example people who love playing golf can play golf at different grounds every day, but not everyone would be drawn towards going to a different vineyard every day.’’
le Grand Noir a French Wine founded by Joseph, Hugh Ryman and Kevin Shaw is distributed by Sula Vineyards Private limited at various high end F&B outlets across India.
For this collection, Joseph made numerous visits to several countries to get the right kind of land and soil. He highlighted that by fortune, he discovered a piece of land in France often referred by its pseudonym — magic region. That land is spread across 6,000 hectares with 1,200 fellow growers. The lowest part is 30 meters of the sea and the highest part 350 meters. ‘‘We have the sea, the moisture-laden breeze, the mountains and valleys, soil, all of which influence the grapes,’’ he said.
According to him, the fascinating thing about wine is a combination of factors including the soil, origin (country), climate and many other elements that makes one wine distinct from the other.
Many of the wine making regions have been discovered by a mix of fortune and wisdom. France, especially Bordeaux, incidentally known for its fine wines was discovered by an Englishman. A region in Italy called Maremma produces exceptional wines but remained undiscovered for 2,000 years as the place was prone to malaria. There are some places that have magical soil like Burgundy, Germany and new world places like Australia, where wine making is considered a tradition but is now making some revolutionary improvements.
Photos: Pankaj Kumar