There is also a rigorous push from various wine-growing countries like France, Chile and Australia that helped women today not to look at wine as taboo, but a drink they can nurse without evoking raised eyebrows.

Rakesh Ahuja, a senior advisor to the government of South Australia who promotes wines and other products from that region in India, says there is a quiet revolution that is taking place in terms of wine drinking in India - notably among women.

"We are observing a sea change. In the early 1990s people hardly knew about wine. Today this is changing. It is something amazing! One of the reasons could be the rise of middle class, hence greater disposable income in their hands," Ahuja, an Indo-Australian who was the former Australian deputy high commissioner in India, says.

During the British Raj, Ahuja said, people were mostly into drinking gin and whisky. Women would sip on an occasional gin and whisky was looked upon as a men's drink."So women didn't have much of a choice. Today this is changing, and changing fast."