To Drink or To Taste

‘To drink or to taste’ The Manager at Dodoma winery asked almost every time we extend our hands to fill (atleast partially) our glasses of wine.

Mr. Augustine from New Dodoma Hotel arranged for a trip to winery of the famous ‘Dodoma Wine – Presidential’. And thanks for Mr. ..., the manager at Winery located almost 50 km outside Dodoma. The winery was set up by an Italian investor in association with local investors. We were lucky to test the famous Dodoma wine right out of the barrels. Well I was one of those unfortunate persons who knew nothing about wine and wine making. It takes a lot of time and patience in making good wine and it was evident in the passion with which the manager was explaining his processes and secret tests to determine how good a wine is. And there we were, 10 people with wine glasses in hand, tasting one wine after another.

For records, I understood that the wine made from grapes is fermented for 21 days, and then kept at certain temperatures for almost 6 months. This involves filtering and cooling to ensure a uniform mix of all ingredients. Dodoma is famous for its Presidential Wines. And we tasted the wine right out of those giant storage cylinders. Another type of wine was ‘Presidential Reserve’. And even an amateur like me could tell right at first sip that Reserve has that ‘special’ taste associated with it. And that explains a huge price difference between the two. For making a Reserve wine, the normal wine is kept in special wooden barrels for minimum of 6 months. The manager took us to the secret chamber where he had kept all those wooden barrels in cold storage. We tested the wine right out of barrels, and were not ashamed to ask for another round of ‘tasting’.

So, we had a good trip out. Our hotel guy Augustine enjoyed his few glasses of free wine and we were back to our hotel by evening 6.