And what better gesture to show how much you care for your spouse or partner than opening a bottle of pink Champagne on February 14, the Valentine’s Day?

Pink Champagne is made from macerating the red grapes- Pinot Noir or Pinot Meunier for a short period or mixing the juices with the white Chardonnay, the third grape allowed in champagne. The pink Champagne has usually been rated a notch lower than the golden bubbly in seriousness but during the last four years, it has started racing harder in the UK and US markets making me predict, incorrectly, that we shall follow the ‘leaders’ and its consumption would go up.

However, due to the light tannins and bigger body, pink can be a better accompaniment with food, especially Chinese cuisine. In fact, at a Cunard Duchêne Champagne tasting at the then newly opened China Kitchen at Hyatt Regency a few months ago, I found the pink version a perfect match for the chicken, lamb, fish and crabs and everything else we had at the table-except the dessert. So I was not surprised when the Sunday brunch initiated a couple of weeks afterwards with unlimited Champagne had on offer- the pink Champagne. The only change was that instead of the Cunard Duchêne there was Moet Chandon Imperial Brut Rosé.

After celebrating the Valentine Day at the JW Marriott in Mumbai, Team Moet Hennessey was at Senate lawns of the Hyatt, a few meters away from where we had tasted TCK-CD Rose combo, last Sunday. After a couple of days of really cold and windy weather that told heavily on the ongoing India Masters at the Delhi Golf Club, the sunshine was as welcome here as it would be to the champagne wine growers at the harvest time- a perfect weather to sip the bubbly with loads of food being served at different live stations.

There was plenty of champagne, snacks, food and fashion designers making me wonder if pink was the preferred choice of the designers too.

A TV anchor was coaxing the fashion guru, Rohit Bal to give him (change to her) a few bytes, ‘How can my story be complete without a few bytes from you? She said. Acting a bit coy, he said, ‘Why don’t you go and interview Ashwin instead?’ ‘Who is Ashwin?’ she asked him.

Ashwin that Bal was referring to was the Ashwin Deo, MD of Moet Hennessey, who has done more for promoting Champagne in India than anyone else- sorry, correction- Moet Chandon and Dom Perignon.

While talking to delWine, he would not comment on the amount of Moet Champagne being imported into India. But he did put the figure of total champagne cases at 25,000. For Champagne alone, that figure does appear a trifle high but with the amount of free champagne flowing at the Sunday brunches in Delhi and Mumbai restaurants (ok, perhaps not after the excise duty went up in Maharashtra to 200%), it might soon reach this figure soon. (Although it occurred to me much later that he was perhaps referring to the 6-bottle case, while we refer to 12-bottle cases for our estimation).

Ashwin did venture to guess that 15% of their Champagne sold was Rosé. With an annual growth of 25-30%, MC is in tandem with the growth in the market of imported wines.

My faith in Rosé Champagne- food match remains intact after this brunch at the Hyatt. Risotto was perhaps the only dish that would have gone better with the sparkling golden. Actually Risotto is one of the easiest dishes to pair with wine and by tweaking the recipe slightly, the Chef could have made it a perfect match with the Brut Rosé (Rose and pink are interchangeable words to describe the same wine, though pink is more commonly used with the sparkler-perhaps that’s why the popular rock band named itself Pink Champagne and not Rosé.

And the Rose was too dry for the delicious desserts- a testimony to the fact that the pink colour has nothing to do with the sweetness of a wine or bubbly.

Have a nice Valentine’s Day. And if you find it cumbersome to locate the Pink Champagne, open any decent bottle of wine with food and tell the person you love, ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’

Subhash Arora