| Sixth Wine Festival begins this afternoon with music and dance | ||
Shillong, Nov. 12: Intoxication will be the official state of being in the Meghalaya capital from tomorrow afternoon when the sixth Shillong Wine Festival begins with a heady cocktail of indigenous wine, music and dance. The venue will be the Crinoline swimming pool complex, where over the next two days Shillongites will raise a toast to Bacchus and his merry band. This year, organiser Forever Young Sports Club has engaged local DJ Savian to add rhythm to the festival, unlike in the past when local music bands used to keep the wine lovers entertained. This is also the first time that the festival will be held for two days, following a demand from wine makers. The home brewers of the Northeast wanted to sell more wine, as previous festivals had been hugely successful, the organisers said. “Another speciality this time is that a team of experts from Canada will taste the wine and rate the best,” said the president of Forever Young Sports Club, Michael Syiem. Syiem, who was instrumental in starting the Shillong Wine Festival in 2003, said the intention behind organising the event was to tap the wine-making potential in the Northeast. Everyone is free to sip wine and jive at the Crinoline complex from tomorrow. The organisers are expecting more than 15 participants from all over the Northeast this year. Besides wine made from locally available sohiong (black cherry), and sohmon (another local fruit), the wine festival will also have brew made from plum, ginger, banana, peach, mango, pear, passion fruit, mulberry, apple, orange, strawberries and pineapple. “A local wine-maker told us that she will prepare special wine made of banana though wine made from banana was displayed in the past by Arunchal Pradesh,” Syiem said. A lot of locally available fruits go waste every season. The annual wine festival has provided a platform for wine makers to exhibit and sell homemade wine brewed from these surplus local fruits. The brewers have also realised that wine has a huge market if promoted properly by the government or other agencies, Syiem said. The general secretary of the club, M. Thabah, said the Shillong Wine Festival would also encourage horticulturists to explore wine-making as an alternative source of income. But they unanimously lament that governments in the Northeast have done little to help the local wine-makers, despite its huge export potential. |
Shillong raises toast to Bacchus
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Sinlung
