In Which I Detect a Flaw In India’s Logic
India is the world’s largest producer of mangoes, and economic development officials in the the world’s second fastest growing wine market think the country should make a name for itself with mango wine. I’ve never had mango wine, myself, so I can’t say for sure whether it has beyond-novelty potential. But the following justification doesn’t give me a lot of hope:
“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.
Here’s the problem with that: France, Italy and Australia didn’t decide to make wine because of “their abundant grape produce”; they decided to produce a lot of grapes because grapes make good wine. Extending Mr. Garg’s logic, in Kentucky where I live we should make horse manure wine because we have a lot of horse manure. You can see how the logic breaks down.
Then there’s this:
The main problem researchers in Lucknow faced was treating the viscous mango pulp to make it thin enough to pass as wine.
Much as wine drinkers like a full-bodied wine, we’d really prefer “chewy” to be more metaphorical than literal. Also, worldwide standards are fairly high. You don’t hear a lot of people saying they’re looking for something that can “pass as wine.”