Following the River to Port

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Mandira Bordoloi

WSET-3, BDM Beer, Wine 7 Spirit
DHL India - Hillebrand Gori

“My dear girl, there are some things that just aren’t done, such as drinking Dom Pérignon ’53 above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s just as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs.”
– James Bond, Goldfinger (1964)
It took only that one line, Sean Connery’s charm wrapped neatly around a bottle of Dom Pérignon for me to fall in love with the idea of wine. And perhaps with the charisma that came with knowing your drink so intimately. Of course, I was far too young then to understand wine, romance, or James Bond’s unwavering loyalty to his beverages. But even at that age, I sensed there was something undeniably attractive about the knowledge of wine, a personality trait that could set someone apart in any room.
Growing up, my relationship with alcohol looked nothing like Bond’s refined rituals. In my family, drinking was never a taboo, but neither was it a performance. My elders enjoyed whatever the canteen offered, from renowned Indian rums to modest whiskies and brandies that served their purpose: helping people dance, sing, celebrate, or simply unwind. Nothing extravagant, nothing theatrical.
At home, fermentation was just another part of life. The scent of rice wine or homemade fruit wine drifting through the kitchen was familiar, even comforting. It wasn’t exotic or pretentious—it simply belonged. Yet somehow, despite being surrounded by all this, I developed a strange detachment from alcohol. Perhaps I was searching for something… different. Something that didn’t feel ordinary.
Wine, however, remained a distant planet – beautiful, intriguing, but utterly alien. For years I believed it wasn’t meant for Indian consumers at all. It felt too foreign, too complex, too steeped in rituals that didn’t match our everyday drinking culture. While the world swirled, sniffed, and sipped, we poured, clinked, and consumed.
But that Bond quote lingered in my mind, quietly nudging me. Maybe wine wasn’t just a drink- it was a narrative, a culture, a conversation. And perhaps, somewhere in the evolving tastes of modern India, there was space for us to explore it too. With the arrival of my legal drinking age, wine still wasn’t a part of my life but fate ensured it found me anyway. I remember being gifted my very first bottle. The price tag hinted that it wasn’t anything remarkable, and the taste confirmed it. It was sharp, slightly off, and far from the velvety elegance I had imagined from years of watching James Bond swirl his champagne with sophistication.
Yet something unexpected happened.
As the tannins gripped my tongue- drying, gripping, almost stubborn they awakened a curiosity I didn’t know I had. If the cheapest wine could taste like this, I wondered, what would the complex ones feel like? Surely the world wouldn’t idolize wine if this was all it had to offer. There had to be layers, textures, stories hidden in every sip of a finer bottle.
That first encounter didn’t convert me into a wine lover, but it sparked a question. And sometimes, that’s all it takes. A question that lingers long enough becomes a journey. And mine was just beginning.
But coming from a small metropolitan city and always surrounded my Defence campus life, exotic wines were never really an option. We drank whatever choices we had in front of us. Nothing fancy, nothing imported, just what the shops stocked.
And then, thanks to my then boyfriend, the only costlier wine I ever got was an Australian one he gifted me on my 22nd birthday. You can imagine-I was in love with my boyfriend and a little bit in love with the wine too. It felt special, different, something I wasn’t used to at all.
Still, even after that, I wasn’t confident enough to order a full bottle of wine at any gathering. I didn’t feel ready to collect them or display them like some people do. I was curious, yes, but not fully convinced. Wine still felt like something I admired from a distance, not something I had the courage to completely embrace.
But after spending almost eight years in media and broadcasting, something inside me shifted. I started feeling that a “wine personality” could add a bit of divaness to who I was. Suddenly, wine didn’t feel distant anymore. The attraction was stronger, almost magnetic, like it had been waiting for me to notice it properly.
And then came my first big step – WSET Level 1 certification in Wines.
I was happy, yes, but even more curious. It didn’t feel like just a course; it felt like falling in love. Like meeting someone interesting while travelling, or spotting a mysterious neighbour you can’t help but think about. You don’t know them, but something in you wants to. That’s how wine felt to me- a mix of love, passion, curiosity, and a quiet pull that kept getting stronger.
Next step of Level 2 hit me harder than I expected.
This wasn’t casual curiosity anymore. This was study tables, grape maps, soil types, climate zones, acidity levels, tannin structures, fermentation science- everything that makes wine what it is. And for the first time, I felt like I wasn’t just admiring wine from far away.
I was finally inside its world. Not as a casual drinker. Not as someone pretending to know. But as someone who was there professionally and passionately.
WSET Level 2 was the moment where wine stopped being just an attractive personality trait and started becoming something I wanted to understand deeply. It felt like meeting the same mysterious person from Level 1 again but now they started opening up, sharing their stories, their history, their complexity.
• Every grape variety was like a character.
• Every region felt like a new destination on a map.
• Every class left me more curious than before.
With time, with patience, and yes, with some investment, I finally crossed a milestone I once thought was impossible – I passed WSET Level 3. A certificate that doesn’t just represent knowledge; it represents every late night, every grape variety memorized, every tasting note written with more confusion than confidence, and every “Aha!” moment that followed.
Even today, my family still doesn’t fully understand what I actually do with wine and spirits besides drinking them. And that’s alright. Some loves are quiet. Some passions don’t need validation. And some relationships like mine with wine are meant to be felt, not explained.
Sometimes it feels like society doesn’t understand this love either. They don’t know why someone would spend hours studying soil, climate, and tannins, or why one swirl of a glass can change your whole mood. But love doesn’t always need approval.
So this Valentine’s Day, my mind goes back to that first spark in childhood – a silly crush born out of a James Bond line, a curiosity that refused to die, a romance that slowly grew into passion, profession, and purpose.
My dream didn’t come true all at once. It came true sip by sip, grape by grape, level by level over time, and in that moment, I’m reminded of that perfect Italian line from The Age of Adaline:
“Anni, amori, e bicchieri di vino, non si contano mai.”
Years, lovers, and glasses of wine – these are things that should never be counted.
Because some things in life are meant to be felt, not measured. And my journey with wine has been exactly that – a love story that never needed numbers.
Cheers!