Aussie is Delhi's only woman wine pro

 NEW DELHI: Like Gogol Ganguli, protagonist in Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake, there was a time when Kavita Devi Faiella hated her name. Her Australian 
parents, also Buddhists, had chosen the name before she was born in Sri Lanka.

Now the 26-year-old Australian loves being Kavita as much as she loves Delhi, a city "with never a dull moment''. "I realised here I've been pronouncing it wrong all my life: Kaveeta,'' she says repeating her name in a softer, more natural way.

Kavita moved to Delhi in February 2009 as sommelier in soon-to-open Aman Hotel. For the uninitiated, a sommelier is a wine professional, who specialises in sourcing wines, taking care of wine-cellars and providing expert advice to customers. Her work right now is all about meeting upper-crust clients, wrestling with red tape to import her wines and, the best bit, tasting new-world boutique wines, which "go best with Indian cuisine''.

This wasn't the job she studied for. Her mother had spluttered, "You want to be a what?'' when she opted out of studying medicine, having got a scholarship to be a sommelier after a holiday in Italy, where she "fell in love with what Italy does with its food, its wine and the men''. "It's the kind of job they don't tell you about in school,'' she laughs.

Kavita finds Delhi virgin territory as far as wine is concerned, with barely "a tiny number'' who know their wine. The "beautiful thing'' about Delhi, she says is that it has no stigmas attached to wine. "No one thinks sherry is grandmom's drink,'' she says. "In Sydney or London, people know what wine they want. Not so here. No one has a strong opinion, they don't know exactly what they want, so they're willing to experiment,'' says Delhi's only woman sommelier.

Having breached what was an all-male terrain, Kavita wants to woo women with a wine experience. Alcohol, world over, is a male-dominated industry, so being in Delhi has been rewarding. India, where wine consumption is still in its infancy, is a level-playing field, she says. "Normally one gives the wine list to the man at the table. But here, I leave it on the table because the women, too, will look at it,'' she says.

For women to buy anything, she says, the aesthetes have to be correct and no retail shop for alcohol provides that. Women who have the buying power and the desire simply don't have access to a wine portfolio, she says. She's geared to make that a comfort zone, beginning with a women's club in October to make wine non-intimidating to begin with. It's advantage woman in this beaming lady's cellar.

Her greatest challenge so far has been putting together her wine inventory. "The government does not support the burgeoning wine society here. It is a hassle getting wine into the country,'' she laments. The ever-changing rules, logistics, paperwork is very frustrating, she adds.

The Indian palate likes to be "saturated with flavour'', says Kavita, who will soon be a master sommelier, in a top-notch club of five or six women master sommeliers across the globe. New-world wines, from Australia, New Zealand and other countries, believes Kavita, pair best with the fullness of Indian flavours, where "warm spices play into different textures''. For the thali though, she concedes her whiskey pairing has worked better. "The smokiness and peety taste go very well with Indian cuisine,'' smiles Kavita, at home in the city of whiskey-drinkers as she calls Delhi.