I've done a little experimenting with that because I want to sell some wine over there. So we convened a few focus groups, they cooked dinner and we supplied the wine.

Obviously there is tremendous variety in India as the cuisine varies depending on the region and sometimes religion. So it depends on what kind of curry you are talking about because there are many. In any event, the consensus seemed to be that reds as a general rule don't seem to work really well.

If you've got a dish that's got really complex spices, or chiles, or coconut, or yogurt, or ground almonds, or all of them, you have so much complexity already that adding complex reds is counterproductive. The reds that worked best were the simplest and those with little or no oak. And that actually bears out the old rule of thumb to pair complex wines with simple food and simple wines with complex food.

White wines as a rule seemed to work better. But there was a difference in the results between the Indian and the non-Indian tasters. Non-Indian tasters were looking for pairings and matches. Some of the wines that worked were off-dry rieslings for example. Or some of the floral and peach scented wines like Torrontes and Malvasia, especially if there was a hint of residual sugar. Personally, I like a touch of sweetness if I have something that's really hot and spicy. And given that the wines were cooler, they acted a little like raita. Gwertz might work, but for me a little goes a long way. People always want to pair that with anything from Asia but I don't think that's necessarily a great idea as sometimes those floral notes end up tasting like soap.

It's not part of the Indian culture to pair wine with food, so their use of wine is a little bit different from what you'd find in France or Italy or Spain, or even the US, which has modeled it's wine habits on the Europeans. I'm absolutely under no circumstances any kind of expert on this issue, but what I was told was that they'd prefer to drink, then eat, then drink something stronger. That's just fine as far as I'm concerned, but it's kind of like the US in the 1980s, where chardonnay became an apertif for women in fern bars, rather than something to enjoy with food.

Greg T gives an excellent run down, I'd just add that some softer, slightly fruitier sparkling wines like Prosecco for example, can often be successful with intensely seasoned and spicy dishes.

I find that cold lambrusco goes really well with Indian Food. My wife says I'm crazy but it works for me.

Forgot about the sparkling wines. They were appreciated too. We tried a wide variety of reds - malbec, garnacha, cab franc, bonarda, cab sauv. No love for cab franc. Ripe and oaky with a bit of spice seemed to be more popular and oddly there was an appreciation of alcohol. It's something I didn't know but the consensus was that if there was more alcohol, people felt they were getting a better deal, or at least were getting their money's worth. Never would have occurred to me to think of it that way.

dmcker - the plan at the moment is only India. It's really hard to sell in some of those places unless you have some connections that are pretty good.

I think Lambrusco is a great call. It goes with almost anything!

Seriously I love Lambrusco and find it to be a wonderful food wine that works well for challenging matches yet is brilliant with an antipasto picnic on a warm summers eve. Now I'm making myself hungry and it's 9 am! Back to work.