ON my first trip to India last year I was excited initially by the number of scruffy little stores calling themselves English Wine Shops. Was the Indian wine revolution I had heard of really this advanced? No, was the answer.

English wine turned out most often to be a �whisky� called Bagpiper selling at just over Pounds 1 a bottle. But India has more than 100,000 acres of vines and they managed to produce something that utterly captivated my palate.

The number of good to great wines I have tasted must be well into four, if not five, figures by now but it took India to introduce me to really good unfermented grape juice. Only a small fraction of India�s vineyards is planted with the vinifera vine varieties most suitable for wine but this proportion is likely to rise as a growing number of better-heeled Indians seem intrigued by this unfamiliar drink.

On my travels I would order highly spiced local dishes and try them out with the Indian wines on offer. Two things emerged. There is no reason why wine should not be drunk with the food served in India (nor with its often slightly paler imitations in �Indian� restaurants outside the subcontinent). The wine should ideally be quite fruity and assertive. A subtle old claret is most definitely not the thing; a California Zinfandel or Australian Shiraz, or even a well-made sparkling wine, would be much more so.

The other conclusion I reached was that Indians themselves tend to be far too damning of their own wines. Before setting off on my travels I had read a feature in India�s only gastronomic magazine (with the wonderful name of UpperCrust) a feature in which �Bombay�s wine-drinking notables� were extremely rude about various indigenous ferments. After my tastings I thought them too harsh.

The Grover range produced from high-altitude vineyards north of Bangalore, with help from the ubiquitous Michel Rolland of Pomerol, is extremely respectable. The reds, particularly the Reserve red, are a distinct notch above the slightly dull Clairette-based white. The rose was positively impressive when I tasted it in London; in a smart Delhi restaurant it had lost its freshness and was almost syrupy. (Dates of the vintages, useful for identification, are not much used in tropical vineyards capable of yielding two crops a year.)

Chateau Indage in the high Sahyadri Valley of western Maharashtra kick-started the Indian wine revolution in the 1980s with a surprisingly appetising methode traditionelle fizz sold on the local market as Marquise de Pompadour but exported with considerable success as Omar Khayyam. Chateau Indage also sells a range of still wines on the domestic market under the names Riviera and, apparently superior but untasted by me, Chantilli. The Riviera red based on Pinot Noir is well made and attractively dry; it takes chilling well.

The most recent entrant into the Indian wine market is Sula, complete with labels of almost California sophistication. This is not so surprising since it was set up about seven years ago near the town of Nashik, 200 km north-east of Bombay, at an altitude of 600 metres, by a young returnee from Silicon Valley. Sula Brut and Sauvignon Blanc will be a welcome addition to India�s smarter wine lists.