Great Grover Wine Festival in association with Grover Zampa Vineyards hosted a pre-event party JW Marriott Hotel Bengaluru on 3Feb16. The evening saw Sumedh Mandla – CEO – Grover Wines, Karishma Grover, Gagan Takyar, Jeevan Nambiar and Vikram Shankar playing hosts to the city’s socialites and performing artists. Guests were seen gushing over the new wines launched from the Grover’s stable.
The Great Grover Wine Festival provided opportunity for guests to taste from the wide variety of their wine. These in essence are heritage wines from Grover Zampa Vineyards, India’s oldest and most awarded wine company. Before the actual event that happened in Bhartiya City on 6th Feb’16. The festival gave opportunities for people to try our grape stomping, enjoy some of the wines, and relish some of the food and music.
Event
I was there in the event in the evening which was party where many of the Bangalore Socialites, Bloggers and Foodies were let free to try out some of the award winning wines by brands including –
Vijay Amritraj Reserve Collection, La Reserve, Chene Grand Reserve, Art Collection and premium sparkling wines Soirée Brut and Brut Rosé
There were special wine-glasses and the grove tag was added to each of the glasses to be able to get the complete feel of Grover wine.
Along with the wine there some live counter for Grills, Barbeques were being made and served.
Location
I want to make a special mentioned of the Spice Terrace in the JW Marriott, which is simply an awesome place for a party like this.
- It’s quite spacious and has got a great ambiance.
- There is a 30-40 mts pool along side; there are nicely setup tables for having dinner. It would best to go to the place for an evening dinner, especially a candle light dinner. During the day time you can enjoy a swim and relax over some juices or a drink.
- Open section to the right side of the pool which also has got some wonderful sitting space. Each of the spaces is private in itself separated by pillars.
- The central area between pool and sitting areas has a big open space. This space also has the bar counter. If you are looking to host a party for 100-150 people , this is the perfect location for hosting a party.
- Standees were for letting the Socialites pose for the picture like in a Red-Carpet event.
I loved the way the entire space has been utilized for an event like this.
Food
I wanted to make a special mention of the food that was served the event. There wasn’t much coz of the simple reason that it was more for enjoyed wines from Grovers.
Snacks
While we were enjoying some great wine and also talking to other guests. Few snacks were being carried by the hotel staff. We could directly pick up the item, eat and wipe off with the tissues/clothes. One of the items was the cheese balls which was quite tasty. There was another dish which had cream/cheese with few veggies like olive on it. It tasted yummy.
Live Grills
This was a section where grills were being made. You could choose from the available options. Some of the options for guests included – Mixed Veg, Zucchini, Broccoli, Paneer and Corn.
Mixed veg was nicely put on a stick. It had a combination of mushroom, green olives, capsicum and cucumber. Adding some spice to it and grilling it enhanced the flavors and it was awesome.
Paneer is one of the most standard items that are available over a grill. Along with the paneer they had added few veggies. The paneer was somehow super soft and somehow was not hot, but served cold. I thoroughly enjoyed the unique way in which paneer was served.
Zucchini, Broccoli and Corn were quite commonly available on grill. But again the selection of right quality of veggies like these is critical to be able to get the right taste. This is exactly what was done at JW. The taste was simply amazing; I enjoyed every bit of the live grill of the veggies mentioned above.
Apart from the Live-grill counter, guests were also offered Badam as one of the dry-fruit options. You could take the dry-fruits along with the wine. I am not sure if I have had it at other places, but I think it’s a good idea to serve some of dry-fruit along with wine.
Overall Experience
I had a great time tasting some of the legendary wines from Groves. It helped me get more knowledge on the wines and also understand its flavors. It was also nice to see an article related to the event appear on the TIME OF INDIA – Bangalore Times paper on 5Feb16 in Page-3.
Wishing Grovers great success going forward in India and abroad.
Some of my friends who were at the event included – Hari Camala, Sudarshan Sampath, Jyothi Varne, Bibhuti Bhusan Panigrahy, Reshma Kumari Dash, Debolina Ray, Arijit Choudhury, Balakrishnan Subramanyan, Manpreet Singh, Arijit Choudhury, Tapash Kumar Sahu , Rahul Nanda, Chef Jolly,Prateek Thakker, John John Eapen.