Wine Review – Kinvah 2016 Red Wine (Cabernet – Shiraz)

Wine Review

What do you get when you rely on the shop-keeper in an over-the-counter wine store? To answer that question I conducted this first test. I would call it a type of system test or user acceptance test. Simple enough it only had two test cases.

1. Buy the wine.
2. Drink the wine.

So simple it can almost be outsourced. But as this is a new domain, we need to get it right from the beginning, and its core business, I argue it needs to be done “in-house”. So lets get started with the reviewand see how it goes.

Buy the Wine

As the wine shop (as most in Bangalore) is just a hole in the wall and you can’t browse to make a selection it is somewhat hard to choose. So I choose to go for something that should exist and take it from there. To my slim knowledge of India wine I assumed there should be a Sula red wine of the Shiraz grape. That is not a too bad guess. In asking for the wine in question, acknowledge it existed, the behind the counter person left to get it. On coming back he had a completely different wine. A Kinvah 2016 red wine which is a mix of Cabernet and Shiraz grapes. The Sula was not available, but this would be a good substitution. OK, let’s have it, 595 Rupees later I was done and walking with a wine bottle wrapped in a news paper.

Kinvah and Almonds

Taste the Wine

With a screw cork it was easy enough to be opened. Pouring up went well. Checking the color it was a dark red, as to expect from a Shiraz, but maybe not this dark as this was a 2016 vintage. For the smell the Kinvah was OK but with a sour touch, bring back memories from a blackberries and an old oak after a long rain in a autumn day, with birds just waking up as the sky clears and the sun is starting to dry up the wet soaked trees. The core part of the test is to do the actual tasting and drinking. Here the sour smell come through in full. The wine has a good taste for the first 0.5 seconds, but the rest is a colorful symphony of sour music, playing on all instruments all over the tongue.

So let’s try it with a quickly, simple and improvised chicken masala, short brown rice, sliced tomato and diced carrots.

Chicken Masala in its making. Note the wine glass.

Well…. At least the food is helping to some bit and with water on the side it is possible to drink at least one glass of the Kinvah before I gave up and relayed on water for the rest.

Verdict

So answering the question “What do you get when you rely on the shop-keeper in an over-the-counter wine store?” I have to say - not much. It feels more that he wanted to get rid of the wine than to be a good wine lover suggesting a nice wine to a Chicken Masala. As I see it the wine failed on all points and disappointingly enough I can only give it ½ of 5 overall.

Here is the summary rating:

Purchase: 2

• quick and swift, no discussion, but also no question on hat I was to eat to get better precision in the recommendation

Open: 1

• Screw cork that come off easy, but so did the whole upper part

Color: 1

• Not a nice sight

Smell: 1

• Not nice

Taste: 1

• Not nice, I said it all

Next I will assess a Kingfisher beer. That can not fail.


KIIO (Kenneth "In India" Olsson)