If you are looking for cheap wine, as a prelude to an evening of binge drinking, or for a special brand of beer, Sante's the place to stop by
If you are looking for cheap wine, as a prelude to an evening of binge drinking, or for a special brand of beer, Sante's the place to stop by
On a weekday, wine-tasting at Santu00e9u00a0 would set you back by just Rs 100 for six shots of assorted imported wines and Rs 50 for six shots of assorted desi wines. On weekends, however, you would need to pay twice as much for the same.
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Sante Wine Tasting Room is located in Colaba. Pics/ Shadab Khan |
They have an excellent selection of wines here, as the manager pointed out, listing their range of Old World Wines (wines that are mainly European) and New World Wines (wines produced in America, South Africa, and Australia). We're not sure where good, old Bharat fits in, but they stock Indian wines too, and if you buy a bottleu00a0-- any bottleu00a0-- your wine tasting session is on the house.
So far, so good, we felt, but then came the wine-tasting and when a gorgeous wine is served in a plastic (yes, you read that right!) shot glass, the whole experience goes right out of the window. And, sadly, that's not even the worst part. The man running the show offered little or no information about the wines.
"That's Three Peaks, a Chilean wine, and the other's a Maison Pierre Grenache Shiraz which is a combination of two varieties of grapes" was about all we learnt, in addition to the price of each variety we sampled.
When we complained about how the glass doesn't leave room for one to swirl the wine or examine its legs, not to mention the fact that it takes away from the flavour of the wine, the attendant explained that they didn't have enough manpower to wash glasses.
Ironically, the place was completely empty when we stopped by, not including the 'manpower'. Three ostensibly able-bodied men and no one to wash glasses! We think the management would be well advised to employ female staff. Less fuss, greater efficiency!
All in all, it was a dull experience, the most thrilling part of which was the fact that we discovered a large selection of wines available at reasonable rates. We also noted that Santu00e9's boasts a wide variety of beers from around the globe including the popular Japanese Asahi beer, which is priced at Rs 150 at the store.
At: Shop No. 53, Chawla House, ground floor, Wodehouse Road, Colaba. Call 64509779 between 12 noon and 10.30 pm.
