Alessandro Vallecchi, marketing director for Allegrini, best known for their big wines Amarone and La Poja, has an alternate life. In that he’s, well, a tour guide — specialising in India travel, bringing groups of European travellers several times a year to Varanasi, and Rajasthan, Delhi and Tamil Nadu and other such places that he says he is “very comfortable with” but which often throw off his fellow travelers.
Wine
Hi-tech labels, wine from Roman times and India travels
Posted by Anoothi Vishal on November 4th, 2009
Posted in Wine 
Tags: Alternate Life, Amarone, Establishments, Excursion, Fellow Travelers, Food Wine, Italian Restaurant, Middle Class, Oberoi New Delhi, One Billion, Poja, Rajasthan, Roman Times, Simplistic Answers, Specialising, Tamil Nadu, Terns, Time Travelers, Travertino, Varanasi 
Comments OffAmarone and Dante’s heir: Connecting Masi wines, Count Serego Aligheri and the Divine Poet Dante…
Posted by Anoothi Vishal on May 9th, 2009
“So do you have any books in your house?” I ask Count Serego Aligheri innocently enough and his eyes light up at the mention. “Ah, I know what you mean,” he replies in a somewhat thick Italian accent: “No, we don’t have any of those.
Posted in Wine Tags: Amarone, Chariot, Dante Aligheri, Direct Descendant, Divine Comedy, Exile, Florence, Generation Successor, Heir, Italian Accent, Jurist, Manuscript, Masi Wines, Mistake, Outskirts, Paradiso, Poet Dante, Rumours, Th Generation, Verona Comments OffThe Indian in Italy…Strange and strangely familiar experiences in Verona
Posted by Anoothi Vishal on April 21st, 2009
Sitting in a small 100 seater aircraft circling over Verona, the city that is best known for being the setting for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, I am struck by some Indian tourists who are obviously taking a very unusual (for them) holiday in Italy. The family is from rural Punjab, husband, wife and a one year old kid, dressed up to his ears in woolies for the European summer that is still cold for us from warmer tropical climes.
Posted in Destinations, Wine Tags: Alternate Universe, Bazaars, Beautiful Indian Women, Beautiful People, Bindi, Black Tie, Holiday In Italy, Husband Wife, Indian Group, Indian Tourists, Romeo And Juliet, Sarees, Seater Aircraft, Swedish Girl, Tie Dinner, Tropical Climes, Wine Company, Wine Dinner, Wine Writer, Woolies 3 Comments »India’s Napa Valley, Nashik
Posted by Anoothi Vishal on March 31st, 2009
Caught in traffic in the choked arteries of Mumbai, you never think that you are going to be able to make it. But once you crawl out of traffic and start cutting through the Western Ghats, the mountain ranges in India’s west that also bring down the monsoons middle of the year, it is an altered universe.
Posted in Destinations, Wine Tags: Capital Of India, Consumer Sentiment, Deities, Drinking Wine, Epic Ramayana, Europe And America, Food In India, Glass Of Wine, Hindu Culture, Last Rites, Molasses, Mountain Ranges, Napa Valley, New India, River Godavari, Vedic Times, Western Ghats, Wine Capital, Wine Industry, Wine With Food Comments OffMeeting Gaia Gaja: A Wine Heiress
Posted by Anoothi Vishal on January 16th, 2009
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="162" caption="Gaia Gaja"][/caption]
The world of luxury wines is like the world of luxury cars in more ways than one. Besides the fact that both are controlled by rather small, exclusive, clubs if you like — in a single conversation it would be quite possible to name all the brands dominating either —these are also worlds ruled, quite unequivocally, by men, powerful men.
Posted in Wine Tags: Chardonnay, Excesses, Fast Lane, Fifth Generation, Gaia, Gaja, Glass Of Wine, Global Marketing, Heiress, Italian Wine, Last Names, Luxury Cars, Piedmontese, Pride, Stereotype, Superbrand, Traditions, Travel Enthusiast, Wine Spectator, Wines 1 Comment »My Visit to the Champagne Country
Posted by Anoothi Vishal on January 15th, 2009
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="446" caption="Champagne Country"][/caption]
Sitting in an enchanted European castle (this one complete with a moat and turrets) on top of a hill, going through a champagne lunch, minding the fish fork from the fowl, etiquette that a French meal necessitates, is the culmination of one morning’s hard labour.
Posted in Wine Tags: Breakfast Time, Chalky Soil, Champagne Country, Champagne Launois, Champagne Lunch, Cote Des Blancs, Escargots, European Castle, Father And Son, Fish Fork, French Meal, Grand Cru, Gypsies, Hard Labour, Harvest Season, Moat, No Doubt, Right In The Heart, Spirit Of Things, Turrets 2 Comments »
