when rohit khattar cmd of old world hospitality and a wine aficionado himself conceived his restaurant chor bizzare at london one of the things he was really worried about was pairing wines with the indian food he was going to serve he did succeed to some extent but says in retrospect it was not easy since its really beer rather than wine that goes better with indian food logically i did feel that the full bodied reds would lend themselves to indian cuisine but surprisingly charles metcalfe a famous sommelier who paired the chor bizarre wines found that it was the lighter whites which proved to be a better foil to the indian flavourskhattar has a point indian food amongst all asian cuisines is probably the hardest to match with wine since the complex layering of spices makes for a tricky challenge the old mantra of white with fish red with meat isnt terribly helpful when youre dealing with food from the subcontinent mukta kapoor corporate head with a hospitality company and a self confessed wine enthusiast feels the matching has to be designed to help both the cuisine and the wine every dish cannot be expected to have a perfect match because our food is generally a symphony of ingredients full blown chilli flavors especially are the most difficult as they can knock out any nuance by numbing the palate to all the other flavours also strong citrus flavours tend to overpower the wine and rich yogurtbased dishes could create a mouth coating effect thus making the matching quite harrowing mohit balachandran a food and wine consultant says that indian food and wine pairing is a highly debated subject because wines have traditionally gone well with western cuisine as most of the wineproducing nations are in the westmany people however believe that at the end of the day it is individual tastes that matter more than anything else veteran wine maker ariff jamal prefers a strong grenachebased rhone like the chateauneuf du pape which he says is good for converting beerdrinking friends to the virtues of drinking wine with spicy food celebrity restaurateur ritu dalmia on the other hand says for me whites go fabulously with indian food meanwhile sommeliers magandeep singh and gagan sharma offer the cardinal thumb rule for pairing indian cuisine with wine light food light wines richer dishes richer wines tandoori smokecooked dishes pair well with an oaky chardonnay white or an oaky merlot a mildly spiced curry will go nicely with a new world pinot noir or a greasy chenin blanc or even riesling manish mehrotra celebrity executive chef at the indian accent agrees since most fine dining restaurants have now evolved to serving even indian dishes coursewise its a little easier to pair a specific dish with a specific wine he says even so especially for the purists there still seems a long way to go for that elusive perfect match between