Magandeep SINGH is India’s first French-certified sommelier (Wine taster). This Wine lover from India divides his time conducting wine workshops, wine trainings, wine events such as wine dinners and wine tastings and also writes for various newspapers and magazines. While most are about wine, food, or both, sometimes he also dabbles in travel and style. Magandeep has also been involved in the organisation of Vinitaly India 2007 and 2008, a spin-off of the largest wine exhibition in the world held annually in Verona. As a part of the Indian event, Magandeep hosted guided tastings and food/wine pairing events aimed at trade, press and VIPS, the most reminiscent being the pairing of Indian cuisines (North and South Indian) with some fine Italian wines.
  
Magandeep, or as he likes to be called, Magan, is also a wine consultant but he prefers the term wine solutions provider. Most wine consultants tell you where the problem lies; Magan prefers to resolves them. Magan helps hotels and restaurants with their wine lists, staff wine trainings and other aspects of wine service. Wine is pretty much a way of life for this Indian hedonist but most would agree that amidst all the enjoyment, some work is also achieved.
Magan is for drinking in moderation and is opposed to the idea of excessive indulgence. If you have too much alcohol, please send it to him!
Cheers!

If you are still managing to stay awake, and are genuinely bothered, here are the details...

After completing my hotel management from IHM, Bombay , I went to Institut Vatel, Nîmes , France to pursue a Master's in Hospitality Management. Following this, I worked in some very prestigious fine dining outlets, including F&B operations with a Parisian hotel (Côncorde Saint-Lazare, Paris). En suite (post September 11th), I pursued a Post-Graduate diploma in wine tasting (Sommelier-Conseil) at L'Université du Vin, Suze-La-Rousse, France. This all-French course requires prior experience in the hospitality field and is the top-rated wine course in France. As part of the course I worked at star-classified restaurants, in the vineyards, and at wine cellars and boutiques. On completion of this course, I, now Sommelier Magandeep Singh,  decided to return so as to prepare the Indian consumers for a vinous attack! Upon my return, I worked in a wine company handling wine training & appreciation and wine-list building activities. Since then, I have conducted various wine-centric events (tastings, dinners, appreciation classes, pairing exercises) for hotels & restaurants, wine bodies, corporate groups, management institutes, among others.

For the past nearly-seven years (as of 2008), I have been an independent wine consultant and have worked in liaison with several hotels and restaurants, advising them on compiling wine lists, marrying wines with food and upselling wines. I have also looked into structuring the wine storage and movement logistics for various outlets. Apart from that, I have helped out wine companies entering India to conduct wine events, tastings, dinners and other related events to popularise the wine and to bring the winemaker in contact with the right people. From events to promote WOSA in India to improving awareness for Chilean, Australian and Argentinean wines in the Indian subcontinent through specific wine promotional activities, I have tried to be involved in all as much as possible. I have conducted tastings of the wines of the Grandi Marchi (Premium, family-owned Italian wineries) during their annual tour to Delhi and Mumbai as part of the Vinitaly India event and also conducted two food pairing exercises with them, covering both North and South Indian food. Let’s just say, both the events in both cities, Delhi and Mumbai, left everyone pleasantly surprised. Amongst outlets and F&B establishments, I have been consultant to various prestigious hotel chains, Olive restaurants (Conde Nast Traveler award-winning chain), and also training consultant to the Moet-Hennessy group. Other assignments include wine training for Oberoi hotels, Imperial Hotel, Hyatt Regency, Radisson, Marriott, Heritage Resorts, and various fine dining restaurants in India (Azzurro, Thai Wok, Moksha).

Apart from these, I have conducted consumer workshops for various corporate clients and multinationals such as Cisco, Infosys, Standard Chartered, HSBC, ABN-Amro, ICICI, Reliance group and independent bodies like the CII (Confederation of Indian Industries), YPO (Young Presidents Organisation), Yi (young Indians) and the YEO (Young Entrepreneurs Organisation). I also hold wine appreciation workshops regularly for debutante oenophiles and consumers who are trying to enter the world of wines for the first time. More recently, I was involved in the organisation of Vinitaly India (Delhi and Mumbai) 2007 and 2008.

Besides this ground work, I am the wine columnist with a leading English daily DNA (Mumbai), India Today Spice and Man’s World. I also contribute regularly to Taste & Travel magazine, apart from the one-off piece for papers like the Business Standard, the Economic Times and the Indian Express and lifestyle magazines like the India Today. A book on wines (the first by an Indian author) with much relevance for the Indian consumer (Wine Wisdom: Buying and Drinking wine in India ) was published with Penguin Books India. It was launched in the second half of March 2006 in Delhi and in July 2006 in Calcutta and won a medal in the Best Wine Education Book category at the World Gourmand Awards 2007 held in Beijing, China.

I have also judged two prestigious international wine competitions in Singapore (Lianhe Zao Bao Annual Wine Challenge 2006 and Wine and Style Asia Awards 2006) and was also key guest speaker at Wine Evolution 2007, Paris in January where I spoke about Indian food and wine and the local Indian wine scenario. I have also presented on the Indian market and consumer trends at Vinitaly 2007 and 2008 in Verona, Italy.

My most recent assignment had been globe-trotting the globe for a TV show, trying out different local cuisines, beverages and places of local interest. The show (in English on NDTV Good Times) is called “Around the World in 85 Plates”  

So a lot of work, one would say, and all to one end: to make wines accessible to the Indian drinking classes and be a pioneer of the cause of wines in this country. Translate that to read: to try and spread the correct message of wine minus the page-3 glam and the wannabe flim-flam so as to help people reach out to wine , and grab it!  

Voila! That’s me in a relatively large-sized nutshell!