WINEMAKER DINNERS - CONCEPT

When I first started at Benares  every  ex colleague and friend of mine was telling me that there was no point working as Sommelier in a Indian Restaurant.
I started with very little knowledge about it and knowing that was going to be very challenging.

Certain Challenges when come at the right time  “spice up” your life. So I start my journey  in  a  very  less gastronomic travelled road, where there was little belief and little knowledge about it
 
In fact, As a general belief when it comes to Indian cuisine and wine, people don't tend to associate the combination of the two with each other,
 
 Indian cusine as matter of fact  presents more hidden pitfalls than all other cuisines and pairing rules here cease to exist.

This tells me that the Sommelier guidance is far more important in an Indian restaurant rather than an Italina, French, cusines where the wine was shaped to complement their dishes over the centuries.
It is so much easier  to spoil a dish and a wine  in an Indian meal comparing with  an Italian or French contest for istance.

This is due to the big personality and complexity of an Indian dish, where  level and layer  of spicing and heat generates completely different wine responses.

In  my hopsitality expereince i I had the luck to work with French, Italian, British, Chinese , and Indian cusines.
I enjoy all of them  but  Indian has something extra, the spices
 I consider wine as the finishing ingredient to a dish, and when you get it right with Indian cusine the palate enjoys explosion of spicy flavours that linger or go in a matter of a second, an added extra dimesnion that not many other cusines can claim.

It is almost 3 years that guests give us lovely feedback and that we trying to unveil possibly one of the best kept secret for food and wine lovers.

We will host wine  dinner as also Winemaker dinners where will bring to you some of the most talented and most influential winemaker of the world carefully selecting their wines to match  Atuls most celebrated dishes

Costanzo Scala
Group Wine Buyer and Head Sommelier