Wineries have offered yoga classes to attract younger wine drinkers. But they might try something better – offering Indian food and wine pairings. Wine with Indian food is a growing field.
SEE THE PHOTOS AND CHARTS HERE https://organicwineuncorked.substack.com/p/namaste-now-hold-my-wine-glass-asian
A recent Wine Market Council event cosponsored with the Asian American Association of America featured Indian wine pairing experts. Wine marketers and wine lovers have new horizons to explore.
I recently had to select the wines for a friend’s wedding where the theme was Indian (Neither the bride nor the groom was Indian but they like India). The caterer was Rooh, a very high end Indian restaurant in the Bay Area, and I had recently returned from a wine press trip to Cava country in Spain (in Penedes, the Cava Meeting was the event), so I ended up getting cases and cases of an organically grown rosé from Vilarnau, available at Total Wine. A sparkling wine, it delivered bubbles and a satisfying bit of fruitiness, all for $20 a bottle–far less than Champagne–and it was quite festive and pretty as well.
But the whole exercise led me to consider more deeply just what does go with Indian food. Luckily there was this Wine Market Council webinar to help me for future occasions.
For a wine industry that’s floundering, the Asian community offers plenty of new wine lovers to cultivate, industry experts said at a recent Wine Market Council co-sponsored event with the newly formed Asian Wine Association of America.
Earlier this year, wine industry trend watcher Danny Brager tracked dining shifts, showing how eateries in the US have swiftly changed as demographics and changing food tastes have impacted what we eat. There are FAR fewer fine dining–white tablecloth places are down around 50 percent–and a growing number of eateries featuring global flavors.
While Apple TV Slow Horses’ fans delight in its slovenly hero’s relatable love of curry takeout in London, new, elite restaurants have extended the range of Indian foods on offer in the U.S.
Think Rooh in SF, near South Park, in the heart of San Francisco’s AI and tech entrepreneur heartland. There is, of course, also a Rooh in Palo Alto, the other epicenter.
Indian food’s growth in the US has been driven by two forces moving together: a fast-growing, increasingly affluent Indian-American population, and rising mainstream American demand for the cuisine.
A few things stand out:
Restaurant count roughly doubled since 2018 — Indian restaurant openings are up 113% since 2018, with 9,438 Indian restaurants in the US as of April 2026, concentrated in California (2,035), Texas (1,318), and New York (841).
The population base grew even faster — the Indian population in the US has increased by roughly 3.1 million, growing about 174% since 2000, and that group now has a median household income above $151,000, compared with about $105,000 for Asian American households overall.
Revenue growth has been more modest — industry-wide, revenue is climbing at a CAGR of about 2.1%, reaching roughly $4.9 billion, with 1.4% growth in 2024 alone, which is slower than the restaurant-count growth, suggesting a lot of smaller/independent openings rather than one big chain expansion — about 77% of Indian restaurants in the US are single-owner operations.
The high end is where the real momentum is right now — upscale Indian dining has seen a recent boom, and the shift is generational: second- and third-generation Indian-Americans eat Indian food out far more than they cook it at home, unlike their parents’ generation.
How This Relates to Wine
All too often, Indian eateries are not pushing wine. At the high end, it’s fruity cocktails. Across the spectrum, it’s beer. But all that might be changing as more and more Indians grow to love wine.
Background | “The Most Important Demographic in America”
Speaking at a WMC webinar in 2025, market researcher Mike Lakusta of Ethnifacts said it’s important to realize what this Indian demographic represents. He wants to, “help everybody understand why this is the most important demographic in America.”
According to Wine Market Council data, Indian Americans make up about 6.3% of the population, but only about 5% of wine consumption in America. But he said, “it’s the fastest growing racial population, the fastest growing buying power growth, the highest income and a higher skew toward wine drinking generations within the population.”
“If you look at projections between now and 2060, what a lot of people don't realize is that the non Hispanic white population is going to decline by 27% as a contribution to growth, the largest will be Hispanic but the Asian American population will contribute 23% to that growth,” he said. Not only that, but the Asian American population tends to be more affluent, he said.
“If you look at the buying power of Asian Americans in California, it’s $469 billion…that is almost as big as the $530 billion of Hispanics in the state of California,” he added. While China is the biggest Asian American population in California, Indian ethnicity is number one in 24 states, he said.
“So if you’re not marketing to these groups, particularly Asian Americans and Hispanics, you’re not reaching the new drinkers that are hitting America right now,” he said.
Enter the 2026 Experts
In the most recent WMC webinar “Mastering the Art of Pairing Wine with Indian Cuisine,” Shekar Sathyanarayana, founder of Nalla, and Neeta Mittal, founder at LXV Wine, explained how things are dramatically evolving in our understanding of Indian food and wine pairings.
Sathyanarayana began with the basics–there’s not just one kind of Indian food.
Spice does not mean heat, he said, emphasizing the aromatics and spice sophistication that Indian food embodies.
Getting a sweet wine to mask the spices is a huge mistake, he said.
“People say, ‘Oh gosh, it's got all this heat, or it's spicy, and you know what? Let's just get a sweet wine.’ You're really drowning the cuisine when you do that. It's not to say that a sweet wine does not work, but it's not really the intention or purpose.”
He interviewed Indian restaurant owners to find out which four different dishes were most popular during COVID because Indian restaurants did extremely well then.
The reason?
“Indian cuisine is one of those things that travels very well, not so much like a burger or a steak, where the moment it comes out of the kitchen, you’ve got to eat it immediately. But with Indian cuisine, you're rewarded with patience, and these were the most common items that people would order,” he said.
Suggested Wine Pairings from Pam (All Are Certified Organically Farmed)
• Sparkling | Vilarnau Brut Cava or Rosé ($19, available at Total Wine)
• Sauvignon Blanc | Frog’s Leap (also available at Total Wine ($29), BevMo and more)
• Grenache | Tablas Creek Alouette $105 for 3L Box (= 4 btls.) (box available from the winery only); 750 ML bottles also available
• Cabernet Sauvignon | Matthiasson ($85 from the winery and available from select retailers; 99 points on Decanter)
A Wheel in Process | Neeta Mittal
For Neeta Mittal, Indian food is like a playground for food and wine pairing. A grower and a vintner in both Paso Robles and St. Emilion, she has tips for getting started, developed over years.
Her tips:
She’s also been working hard on a pairing wheel and one can download the app version on her website.
Mittal also offers an exotic variety of spice kits.
She is also working to educate Indian restaurant owners on how to incorporate wine into their businesses.
Where to Find Organically Grown Wine from Indian Winemakers in California
Indian owned wineries farming organic grapes with wine for sale:
• Nicholson Ranch in Sonoma from Mumbai-born Deepak Gulrajani
• Parr Wines in Cambria from famed former sommelier Raj Parr (originally from Calcutta), now turned farmer and winemaker
Listening to this webinar and its tantalizing description of Indian food made me lust for the food itself. As soon as the webinar ended, it was off to my favorite Indian restaurant–Ajanta in Berkeley–to satisfy the cravings this webinar awakened. It is one of Alice Waters’ favorite restaurant picks, too. I was told today that the produce all comes from the farmers market.
Here’s to more organically grown wines to pair with delicious Indian food.
To view the full webinar, become a member of the Wine Market Council.
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