Kinvah Manthan

Woohoo, an all new wine!  From Hampi! W00t!

"Hampi?"  "What, I say, What is Hampi?" (obligatory age-inappropriate continuation deleted)

Hampi is the historic capital of the Vijayanagara empire - its huge, spectacular, was around 60 square miles in size, at its peak had around half a million people, and most importantly, was the site of the first annual Paolini-Subramanya Experience India(!) tour (12 people, the resplendent Lindsay, and a wheelchair).

Great time, no end of Gratuitous History everywhere (people living in or next to 1400 year old temples, random stuff, blah, blah, blah).

"Great" you say.  "Great, but what on earth does this have to do with Hampi?"

I'm glad you asked.  

We got back from the weeklong trip, and dying for a glass of wine (No!  Never!) i swing by a wine store and see am pushed aggresively towards a bottle of Kinvah Shiraz (more on this in the future).  Not Sulu.  Not Grover.  Not even ND Wine.  Kinvah.

And - shock of shocks - its actually good!

So, I head back to the store, looking for this, and a now pushed towards the Kinvah Manthan (Sanskrit for 'to churn'), which basically translates to "We took every random grape that we found, dumped it into the barrel, and did the Industrial Thang on it, and Voila!  Manthan!"

And what d'you know!  It aint bad!

Ok, lord knows, it isn't all that good.  But for an $8 bottle (Rs. 400, approximately), its pretty damn good.

Its slightly astringent at first pass, kinda raw, with a little bite at the back of the tongue.  

It has faint overtones of blackberry leaves and gunstone... Wait, kinda carried away there.  Have no idea what that means

Its an easy drinking wine.  Open the bottle, pour it into your glass, leave it alone for a little while, and then have it with a few jackfruit chips (I swear I am not making this up. Its great!).  

For the price, can't be beat.....

"Huh"?  

"Jackfruit Chips"?

"Wtf?"

"You Loon..."

I'm the one in India, and you're not.  So I get to say what I want.....