LIFESTYLE

The
Smiling Sun:
Journey to Sula Vineyards

We have all become accustomed to the Indian success story. We are, for starters, familiar with how India has enjoyed growth rates of 9 per cent over the past decade, making it the second fastest growing economy in the world, as well as the fourth largest economy in purchasing power parity terms. We know all about the mass appeal of Bollywood and the Indian fashion industry. And, like the Brits who have even (despite their predilection for the insipid) declared it their favourite national dish, we do love the extravagant flavours of an Indian curry. But have you heard about the latest feather in the Indian cap, the fine art of wine-making?

No? Well, India produces its own wine, and by recent accounts, it is starting to produce lots of it. The state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, already has more than 40 wineries and over 1,500 acres of vines are under cultivation for wine production. Wine sales in India are also growing at an exponential rate of about 30 per cent annually. India, it seems, has developed a nose for wine, a by-product of an increasingly affluent and sophisticated society, the shape of which is being reconfigured as rapidly as the physical landscape of its main cities. Analysts suggest that India may in the next 15 years even become one of the largest consumer markets in the world for wine, which represents a revolution of sorts, for a culture steeply entrenched (a legacy from the British Raj) in the less refined habit of drinking prodigious amounts of scotch.

With these facts in mind, I was determined to experience the Indian wine revolution for myself and having studied the possibilities, selected Sula Vineyards, India's most successful wine-maker, based in Nasik, for my maiden excursion into Indian wine country.

The story of Sula reads from the same chapter as modern and globalised India itself. It was started by Rajeev Samant, a Stanford educated engineer, who eschewed a life on the executive track in Silicon Valley to work on his family's farm in Nasik. While on the farm, Samant became convinced that the climate in Nasik was suitable for wine-making. He consequently went back to California in search of a winemaker, and at a chance meeting, stumbled onto Kerry Damskey, an expert in the field. A successful collaboration between the two individuals ensued that, at the outset, involved the transplanting of the French Sauvignon Blanc and Californian Chenin Blanc grapes onto Indian soil in 1997. Sula produced its first wine in 1999. Today, Sula produces 1.5 million litres of wine a year, some of which it exports to the US, Europe and Asia, including Singapore.

Despite being a vineyard aficionado, my philosophical framework for vineyard excursions was hitherto limited to the Zen like experiences of forays into the Margaret River in Western Australia, or the Claire Valley, Barossa Valley and Coonawarra in South Australia. The common theme of these journeys is that beyond a point, you leave bustling civilisation behind you and enter an enchanting world of rolling fields, grazing cattle, sheep, lamb and horses, acres of grapevines, as well as rows of plum, peach, orange and tangerine trees, whose leaves and flowers paint the landscape in vibrant colour. It is a world of serenity, of inner peace, of quiet anticipation of the gourmet pleasures to come. It is the terroir for the spectacular wines that are on offer for tasting, and provides the immaculate setting for the eclectic and imaginative range of cuisine available at the vineyards; food and drink that nourish both the body and the soul.

I started the journey to Nasik knowing of course that chaotic India and restrained Australia bear virtually no resemblance to each other. But then again, the fundamentals of wine-making and the concept of terroir are on all accounts universal and, on the basis of that logic, how different could an experience involving a vineyard be? In retrospect, even calling it different would have been an understatement. The journey to Nasik was rather like being in a Fellini movie: it was surreal bordering on fantasy, with a hint of suspense, and a dash of drama. It was top entertainment.

Nasik is situated 180 km northeast from Mumbai, nestled in the Western Ghats at the edge of the Deccan Plateau at 2,000 feet above sea level. The two cities are connected by the Mumbai-Agra highway, a comfortable road generally free of the otherwise ubiquitous potholes that afflict Indian roads. The drive to Nasik (at the standard sluggish pace of Indian automobiles) works out to be over three hours from Mumbai.

The first scene of the Fellinian script of my journey to Nasik was an outburst of high drama. On the outskirts of Mumbai at a traffic light junction, we saw a three-wheeler taxi (known in India as an 'Auto') speeding past us. Unable to withstand the centrifugal force as it turned, the Auto spun round like a top before finally capsizing in the centre of the road. Within seconds, a melee of on-lookers rushed to the scene, dragged the driver and passenger out of the vehicle, and after restoring the vehicle to its original upright position, pushed it to the side of the road. The driver and passenger revived, the whole mess was in a flash swept aside like a cloud of dust into a dust pan. And we witnessed the start to finish of this elaborate spectacle just while waiting for the traffic light to turn green.

Drama metamorphosed into surrealism. The long journey on the highway from Mumbai to Nasik was no escape from civilisation. While traffic zigzagged their way through the undulating track, life was teeming on the side of the road, with village affairs being played out in all its forms. The bizarre scenes of highway police in their patrol jeeps stopping to give lifts to hitchhikers (sticking their thumbs out) and of pilgrims with messy long hair dressed in orange loin cloths walking barefooted to Nasik (a three-day journey I was told) reminded me of whose movie I was in (yes, that's right, Fellini's). Road signs along the way such as 'Go slow, weak bridge' built up the suspense. The climate was hot and dusty and the landscape dry and in some areas even charred, the vegetation obviously slashed and burnt to make room for agriculture. This was not the terroir of wine country as I knew it.

The surreal theme continued as we made our way to the city of Nasik, a dichotomous city known both for being a holy site for Hindus as well as a second tier industrial city. Legend has it that the main protagonist of the Hindu epic Ramayana, Lord Ram, and his brother Laxman, found refuge during a period of exile in Nasik. The city is, against the backdrop of that legend, strewn with temples on the banks of the Godavari river where devotees plunge themselves into the holy waters as part of their worship. In its other avatar, Nasik is home to an impressive array of multinationals and is also the third most industralised city in Maharashtra, after Mumbai and Pune. The seemingly contradictory worlds of India's mystical past and industrial present converge here.

Sula is located on the outskirts of the city of Nasik and we finally find Gangapur Road which leads us to our destination. After passing a buffalo farm, with its magnificent black and muscular inmates grazing quietly in the background, we see a gate embossed with the plaque of Sula. The symbol of Sula, the smiling sun, with Indian facial features and Salvador Dali styled moustache, radiating burnished sunbeams that represent long tresses of golden hair, makes a powerful impression.

Wine-tasting in Sula produces another novel experience. The premises for tasting could be mistaken for someone's two-storey detached bungalow, with the sprawling grounds resembling an oversized garden. On the ground floor where the living room should be, you find a mini-exhibition of the production process with a bottling production line on display. Upstairs is where the tasting takes place, after which you can purchase wine and sit comfortably on a balcony that gives you stunning views of the vineyards, the surrounding mountain ridges and the Gangapur lake. Tasting turns out to be an Indian-style family affair and you find omnipresent crowds of families: parents, grandparents, small children, teens and the like. The mood is festive, and you almost feel like you have gate-crashed someone's kid's birthday party. Being a somewhat recent phenomenon, wine-tasting is still occasionally viewed as a sort of curiosity, and at times even with suspicion, and I saw at least one grandpa declining an invitation to have a sip. Meanwhile, a group of 20-something-year-olds buy a bottle of dessert wine, divide the liquid into a series of small glasses and knock it down like shots.

For a hundred rupees (the equivalent of less than $4), you can taste five varieties of wine on offer: Cabernet Shiraz and Zinfandel representing the reds, Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc the whites, and a late harvest Chenin Blanc as a dessert wine. If you persist, they might even allow you to try (as I did) their Reserve Shiraz. As a general observation, while the standard of wines was in the realm of commercial acceptability, the hotter conditions in Nasik as compared with other known wine regions did unleash a disproportionate amount of sugar content. Sula has attempted to mitigate this effect (although not entirely successfully) by harvesting the grapes at the end of winter where the temperatures can reach a low of 10 degrees at night, thereby exposing the grapes to warm days and cool nights and slowing the maturity process.

Among the reds, I enjoyed the Cabernet Shiraz, a blend of 80 per cent Cabernet Sauvignon and 20 per cent Shiraz, with its smoky aromas, laced with flavours of cherries and plum fruit. The wine was a little weighty when served at room temperature but was set free when chilled and was beautifully refreshing. For the whites, I enjoyed in equal measure both the Sauvignon Blanc and the Chenin Blanc, the former being crisp and dry with vibrant white fruit flavours (a la New Zealand), and the latter, a sweeter and less acidic variety of the Chenin Blanc grape, delivering characteristics of stewed apples, lime and a touch of honey. Again, wonderfully refreshing.

Having completed my round of tasting, I purchased a glass of Chenin Blanc (which I considered to be primus inter pares of the wines that I had sampled) and sat on the balcony to enjoy the view. It is sometimes said that wine drinking was as much about context as it was about the contents of the bottle and the joyous complexity of my Nasik adventure provided perfectly the context for my enjoyment of these really decent Sula wines. An experience truly worth savouring.

It was already almost seven in the evening and being the month of December, the air was starting to chill. I stayed on, sitting lazily on the balcony with drink in hand, to watch the smiling sun turn bright reddish orange, and then collapse into a dusky purple, before it finally descended beneath the Nasik horizon.

Prakash Pillai
Rajah & Tann LLP
E-mail: prakash.pillai@rajahtann.com