Champagne: Hurley and Ken Serve Indian Wines

Guests invited to a Raj-themed brunch party being thrown by birthday girl Liz Hurley this morning should brace themselves for an absence of champagne; instead, the actress will be serving a crisp white Indian wine - Château Sula. Tomorrow night, at a summer party organised by the London mayor's office, Ken Livingstone has also chosen to offer his guests a selection of Indian wines.

Once dismissed as undrinkably sickly, wine made in India is about to be aggressively marketed in Britain. Importers are increasing the quantity they bring into the country and the wine is finally becoming available beyond the confines of the Indian restaurant.

With its destructive monsoon season and brutal summer temperatures, the Indian climate has little in common with Bordeaux, but there are patches of countryside where the weather is almost Californian and conditions are ideal - as long as the grapes are harvested before the rains arrive. New expertise and root stock have been imported from France and the US, helping three main producers to emerge.

These vineyards are still in their infancy and the nation turns out just 250,000 cases of good wine a year - about a thousandth of the amount bottled by France. But the industry is growing at about 30 per cent annually as a new enthusiasm for wine develops among India's increasingly cosmopolitan middle class.

Brands like Château Indage Marquise de Pompadour are not yet scheduled for export to the more sophisticated French market. However, Indian food lovers in the UK, with their less developed palates, have been identified as target consumers.

'Indian wine still needs to work on its reputation,' Venki Venkatraman, editor of the website Indiawine.com, said. Wine was traditionally blended from grapes grown for eating and molasses alcohol, creating a cheap but rancid brew, guaranteed to induce headaches: 'It's no longer the dollar-a-bottle sweet port wine made for weddings and church services. Its quality has improved enormously with the arrival of new techniques from abroad.'

Colin McSweeney, head of sales at Gandhi Wine importers, said the appetite for Indian wine had been growing steadily for three years. 'It's probably a spicier wine than equivalents from Argentina or Australia, which is why it complements Indian cooking so well. People are always very keen to try something new.'