21 June,2026 08:55 AM IST | Mumbai | Debjani Paul
Anushka Malkani, chef and founder of the Bombay Wine Club, introduces us to a surprisingly delightful pairing of Beaujolais, a French red, with crisp, buttery dosa. Pic/Atul Kamble; Location Courtesy Filia, at Roswyn
Have you ever had red wine with a dosa?" Anushka Malkani asks us. She smiles, pouring a vibrant berry red into our glass - one of her favourites: Beaujolais, a fruity, medium-bodied French wine - as steaming dosas are placed before us.
"The idea came to me one day when I was missing the crepes I'd have with wine when I was in Paris," says Malkani, who trained as a chef in France before returning to Mumbai and setting up Masa Bakery here.
We start by swirling and sniffing the wine, followed by a sip: we find it beautifully light and fruit-forward, with bright notes of strawberry, raspberry, maybe even some cherry. Then, we turn to the dosas - crisp and buttery, one stuffed with cheese, the other laced with podi. We try the cheese dosa first, and then take a sip of the wine again. Instantly, the wine feels more rounded on our palates. The wine is low on tannins to begin with, and the dosa's richness softens it to a silky finish.
Even the dosa's aftertaste changes - it feels richer, sweeter upon interacting with the wine. Next, we try the podi dosa with a tomato-based chutney, and its effect is completely different; the combination leaves a buttery impression on the palate.
"Usually, most people wouldn't pair a red with podi dosa. This combination works because Beaujolais is low on tannins and doesn't fight spice," says Malkani, "Otherwise, tannins amplify the heat of chillies and both the food and wine feel harsher. And that's why most people tend to pair Indian food with off-dry whites [some of which come off as sweeter]," says Malkani.
It's a fallacy that the global wine industry has repeated time and again: Indian food is spicy, so it must be paired with an off-dry Riesling or Gewurztraminer. It's become one of the many fallacies that govern "wine culture", such as red wine goes with red meat, whites go with white meat (it depends on the sauce more than the protein); or red wine must only be served at room temperature (that rule was meant for European climate); or Indian food is too strong to explore more diverse wine pairings.
"Wine doesn't have to be had with steak or pasta," she says. "For example, I'd love a Chablis with our humble dal chawal."
"I think people are a bit afraid to experiment and judge for themselves what's good and what's not," says Malkani. And that's part of the reason why she founded the Bombay Wine Club a year ago, to take away the hesitation and fear that so many people have around wine, and also to help people redefine how to explore wine in an Indian context. "I started small, with just six to eight friends at my home, tasting seven to eight wines through the course of the evening," says Malkani, who is WSET-certified from the UK.
Wine clubs are particularly crucial to the wine scene that's exploded in the last five to 10 years, especially because of the high cost barrier that comes with buying an entire bottle. In these clubs, enthusiasts can pay a fraction of the cost and try out multiple variants. Bombay Wine Club, for instance, hosts sessions for anywhere between R3000 to R6000, with five to six international wines up for tasting (industry standard is to serve 60-75 ml samples, as there are many varietals to cover in each session). These are safe spaces for first-timers and experienced drinkers alike to dismantle assumptions tied to class and Eurocentricity that gatekeep who gets to understand and enjoy wine.
The dream, she says, is to open a wine bar in the city in the next year or so. "I want to build a community of people who like wine, and want to explore it on their own terms, learn how to do food pairings. When it comes to wine, there's only one rule that matters: If you like it, it works."
Mohona Chowdhury, a wine-writer educator based in France, is reeducating the world about Indian cuisine and how well it pairs with wine, one Reel at a time
Mohona Chowdhury (@thewinediangirl), a wine writer-educator and consultant living in Beaune, France, has lost count of how many times she has heard from someone, "Indian food is so spicy, you must pair it with Riesling and Gewurztraminer."
"That's a very Euro-centric way of looking at things - spicy food, okay, I'll pair a sweet wine with it. Even the wine books many of us have studied say that," she says.
"First of all, Indian food is not one flavour; how can you pair the same wine with a mutton rogan josh and a rajma chawal? We have so many cuisines and flavour profiles across the country; in reality, the wine pairings are limitless," she says.
To prove her point and educate other wine lovers, Indian and non-Indian alike, she and her partner, a Frenchman, started a year-long Instagram series on wine pairings with food from each state of India. "Each video, we'd cook a dish from one state and pair it with a French wine."
They paired Hyderabadi biryani with a Beaujolais, and Pinot Noir with rajma chawal and berry pulao. They did pairings with mutton rogan josh and Chettinad chicken too. And slowly, she began to see other creators and colleagues address the "white gaze" in the wine world as well.
"Honestly, wine culture has been gatekept by white people for such a long time. In India, that gatekeeping translates to a class barrier, where many traditional wine drinkers refuse to see past Bordeaux wines. But I'm starting to see changes in India too, since 2020," she says, adding, "Don't let anyone tell you your food is too Indian or too spicy to pair with wine - wine-making has been around here since at least the fourth century BCE. We've been fermenting fruits to make alcohol at home for centuries. It's just that that culture got eroded first by the Mughals (discouraged under Islamic rule), and then by the British, because they were more interested in India growing other crops."
In March, members of the All Things Nice wine community came together at Pali Bhavan in Churchgate to sample a six-course, six-wine pairing menu that founder Nikhil Agarwal dubbed "The Maharaja Wine Dinner". From bhel to Amritsar chicken tikka to pudina pani puri and pulao, the dinner menu exclusively featured Indian food paired with wines from France, Italy, Germany, and even Chile.
He's held similar pairing menus at Lower Parel's Indian cuisine restaurant Comorin as well.
"In the last 10 years, Indians have started looking inwards in terms of just how good our cuisine is. I see a lot of consumers happy to enjoy their sabzi roti with a glass of wine. And why not! In Italy, pasta is their everyday food, so it makes sense that they'd pair that with wine. Wine is not for occasions, it was always meant to be an everyday beverage. The only way for us to enjoy it that way is to pair it with what we eat every day: Indian food," he says.
"Why not have sev puri with C Sauvignon Blanc," quips Agarwal, who recently posted a video on Instagram experimenting with this very combination. "I like how the tamarind in the chaat complements the citrusyness of the wine," he says in the video.
While high net worth individuals in India have always had access to good wine and more room to experiment, the high cost of an entire wine bottle has been a significant barrier for the larger population, he admits. But here's where Indian cuisine restaurants are changing the game: by expanding their wine menus and offering more options by the glass, rather than the whole bottle.
At Churchgate's Nksha, for instance, Agarwal curated a wine menu spanning across 100 options, all offered by the glass. "We wanted to make wine more accessible to people. Now you can come in, order your butter chicken and pair it with wines from all over the world. Instead of paying R20,000 for a bottle, you can buy a glass for a fraction and experiment with versatility," he says.
At Comorin, all 60 wines on the menu - curated by Head of Wines Kevin Rodrigues - can be bought by the glass. At the Indian Accent, too, 50 of the wines from the extensive menu can be bought by the glass. "The idea to keep it approachable for guests who might want to try something new without having to commit to a bottle," says Rodrigues. "Over the years, I've seen that people will shy away from a bottle of wine because it is too expensive. Most restaurants only offer the good stuff by the bottle. People get put off by the price point and switch to a cocktail or straight serve."
Indian Accent is also one of the few places in the country to regularly offer wine pairings with their seven-course Chef's Tasting Menu. We go through the menu and find several unusual pairings that bend the unspoken rules of the wine world. Such as a duck course that's paired with a white: Clairette and Grenache Blanc Blend.
"It's not about the protein," says Rodrigues, "This dish - Dry aged duck with khandvi and fajeto - has more elements that pair well with the white. The khandvi, in particular, goes very well with the wine, as do the sweet and sour chutneys. Basically, here, the duck is just a texture, the flavour profile comes from the khandvi, and the citrusy, zesty wine amplifies that."
Rs 1K-5K
Price range of international wines by the glass (150 ml) at city restaurants
That's just a colonial hangover, says Vidita Mungi, founder of Rhythm Winery in Pune
People have been making fruit wine in their homes since the Bronze age," says Vidita Mungi, founder of Rhythm Winery in Pune. "In Himachal Pradesh, apple and peach wines have been fermented for generations. The Northeast also has a tradition of making fruit wines from surplus harvests. It was just not done at a commercial scale because of our hot climate and difficulties transporting wine across the country's vast terrain." These are problems technology has solved, and today, Rhythm Winery makes a bouquet of different versions of the fermented drink: from strawberry to pineapple and kiwi, to indigenous fruits like the Alphonso mango and jamun.
For their newest offering, jamun wine, the fruit is sourced from Mahabaleshwar and is processed as a natural wine, with "no added sugar, no blending". "When we launched it in December 2025, my grandmother said it brought back a childhood memory of the jamun tree at her neighbour's house and the wine they'd make," says Mungi.
Natural wines are all the rage internationally, and Rhythm Winery's Alphonso mango wine is served at several gourmet restaurants in London, UK. "Abroad, people have experimented enough to know that wine doesn't have to be a certain way. Here, many still believe that the only way to make wine is from grapes, or that only the imported ones are good. But sometimes that imported bottle is the cheapest wine in its country of origin, sold here at thrice the cost," she says.
"There's a new wave of consumers though, who have realised that Indian-made wines pair better with Indian food because the makers understand the cuisine and climate deeply. Indian food is high in spices and salt, and needs acidity to balance that. A paratha and pickle eaten with a cabernet will break you into a sweat in this heat. But with a chilled strawberry wine, each bite and each sip will be complementary," she adds.
"Grape wine proliferated in the West and was spread across the world by colonial powers. That's no reason to turn away from our own traditions of wine from fruits indigenous to our country, like mango or jamun."
"Since I began my wine journey more than two decades ago, perhaps the most significant change is that Indians have become more confident in interpreting wine through their own culinary experiences. Earlier, wine appreciation was largely guided by Western frameworks.
Historically, much of the world's wine education was developed in Europe and later adapted globally. Naturally, the examples used in teaching, food pairing and wine communication were often centred around European cuisines and dining traditions.
Today, consumers, sommeliers and chefs are exploring how wine interacts with the extraordinary diversity of Indian cuisine, from coastal seafood preparations to rich regional curries and vegetarian dishes. Rather than challenging Western wine knowledge, we are expanding it by adding perspectives that were previously underrepresented.
At the Sonal Holland Academy, our goal is not to replace global wine knowledge but to make it more relevant and meaningful for Indian consumers and professionals. We teach internationally recognised wine qualifications and standards, but we also encourage students to think critically about how those principles apply within an Indian context. Alongside classic international pairings, we spend considerable time exploring how wine works with Indian ingredients, cooking techniques and regional cuisines. We also expose students to Indian wines and discuss the unique opportunities and challenges of the Indian market."
Sonal Holland, India's first Master of Wine and founder of the Sonal Holland Academy, Mumbai
Sonal Holland:
. âChilean Cabernet Sauvignon with dal makhani
. âChampagne with bhajia
Nikhil Agarwal:
. âVada pav with chilled Chardonnay
. âCurd rice with chilled Pinot Grigio
Mohona Chowdhury:
. âHyderabadi biryani with Beaujolais
. âRajma chawal with Pinot Noir
Kevin Rodrigues:
. âBengali fish fry and kasundi cream with Valpolicella
. âButter chicken and Chianti
Anushka:
. âCheese dosa with Beaujolais
. âDal chawal with Chablis
