Sudeshna Dutta By Express News Service BENGALURU: When stand-up comedians Somnath Parikh, Joteen Patro and Aamer Piran came on stage to make people laugh at a wine-tasting event, it was a different experience altogether. “When we perform at clubs, people don’t care about their drinks, they care about being drunk. Here, the gathering cared about their drink and comedy was a sort of background music for them,” says Parikh. The three were performing at Toast & Tickle, an event hosted by Howard Johnson Hotel, Hebbal, which took the audience through a journey of wine tasting along with stand-up comedy acts.“We usually perform at a gathering where people are drinking beer, but this has been a nice change,” says Piran. With events like this, the hotel aims to make wine a preferred choice for Indians, who mostly gravitate towards whiskey and rum. “Promoting wine consumption in India is our motive. Young adults need to know what they are missing out on,” says Abhijit Barman, founder, Wine Tour India, which organised the event. The idea of holding a stand-up comedy act came about because a traditional wine-tasting event might appear to be a boring affair for many. “To attract people’s attention here, we thought of a format which will make them feel at ease about wines rather than a formal way of spreading knowledge. We wanted to break that monotony and create a platform that is fun as well as informative,” adds Barman. With different varieties of cheese and small bites moving to the tables, the one-and-a-half-hour programme saw 30-year-old Piran taking to stage first and setting the mood, after which Barman took over to explain the texture of various wines and how to differentiate between them. Meanwhile, everyone received sparkling, white and red wines, and followed the sip-and-swirl technique, as directed by Barman. After every 10-15 minutes of his session, the other two comedians took the stage to keep the audience entertained with witty anecdotes. The hotel hopes to put in more twists to their upcoming wine-tasting events. “We tried to do things a bit differently and so we partnered with Wine Tour India to put wine culture in perspective as well as a cheese supplier who can do the pairing well. Going forward, we will do more of these events with music, movies, and food during the month,” says hotel GM Sapnil Kalkar.

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