Wine, which in Shakespeare’s days was almost eponymous with the grape, has since taken on numerous avatars - plum, elderberry, and gooseberry wine, for instance. Rice wine (sake), apple wine (cider), and honey wine (mead), have an almost equal antiquity in their own countries, and several of them have made a splash in the international arena as well. But now there is a new kid on the block - watch out for mango wine, made in (you guessed it) India!
Not many would have thought that the delicious mango, arguably India’s most beloved fruit, would lend itself to the heady plume of beverages. But that is just what seems to be happening. A team of researchers from the Central Institute of Subtropical Horticultural Research (CISHR) in Lucknow has produced wine using three types of mangoes - dussehri, langra and chis - which are grown in abundance in Uttar Pradesh, its director H Ravishankar has announced.
Scientists at the CISHR have produced wines using three types of mango native to Uttar Pradesh - Dussehri, Langra, and Chausa. “We thought if France, Italy or Australia had made a mark for themselves as leaders in the wine industry, essentially because of their abundant grape produce, why don’t we try out our skills with the huge quantities of mango grown in this region?” said Neelima Garg, who led the research team. “Just as each of the mango varieties taste different, each of the wines too varies in taste as well as in flavour,” added Garg, who has been working on the project for the past two years.
The main problem researchers in Lucknow faced was treating the viscous mango pulp to make it thin enough to pass as wine. “The process of fermentation is not very tough, as mango contains huge quantities of sugar, which is the basic source of alcohol, but balancing the viscosity is what needs to be done very carefully,” she said.
The alcohol content in the slightly yellow, sweet drink is 8-9 per cent, which is lower than the alcohol content of a typical wine made from grapes, that generally ranges from 10-15 per cent. Researchers in Lucknow and elsewhere are hoping that India’s ‘wine adventure’ could include more exotic wines made from mangoes, blackberries or even apples.