India

The
arrival of Sula’s wines in Massachusetts may raise some
eyebrows, as it heralds yet another incoming market of world
wines, and presage extensive plantings of name-varietal
vineyards throughout the globe’s tropical
regions.

An Indian Wine website is
listing lots and lots of wines being made in India, but this
writer’s guess is that most of them would be too sweet and
simple for most American tastes. Some of the wines’ names
give away the game that it’s home market fare: Golconda
Ruby; Grover Vineyard Rose of Cabernet Sauvignon;
Prathmesh’s Red, White and Rose; a burst of sparkling wines
with names like Joie, Marquise de Pompadour and Omar Khayyam
made with blends of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Thompson
Seedless or Ugni Blanc.

But at least one Indian
winery has begun marketing worldwide. Sula Wines have
arrived in the US via Dreyfus Ashby, with their owner ready
to taste and talk. Rajiv Samant’s background of wealth and
privilege is not an unfamiliar one in the world of wine.
Born of an affluent family in Bombay (aka Mumbai), Samant
studied in California, graduated from Stanford, and worked
in Silicon Valley for several years. When his fascination
with computers grew jaded alongside the market’s downturn,
he decided to go back to India to turn his attention towards
some venture more exciting and satisfying.

“I really had no idea what
field to pursue,” Samant commented candidly at a tasting
dinner hosted by Dreyfus-Ashby’s Bruce Cole at Tamarind Bay
in Cambridge.

Agricultural ideas began to
crackle in his brain when Samant visited his father’s 3OO
hectares of grasslands situated on the Deccan Plateau,
ancient hills 1OO miles northeast of Bombay, India’s
thriving metropolis. “At first, at the farm in Nasik, I grew
mangoes, roses, Thompson seedless grapes, and pomegranates.
None of these crops made any money.”

Why wine? Samant shrugs.
“It seemed a romantic notion at first. What little I knew
about wine came from tasting it often in California. But I
soon learned that the climate of our area (Maharastra state)
was suited to growing wine grapes. For the critical water
for irrigation, we have a natural lake only thirty miles
away.”

Samant hired Kerry Damskey,
winemaker at Huntington Winery of Healdsburg, in Napa
Valley, as his consultant. Sula imported cuttings of Chenin
Blanc from California and Sauvignon Blanc from
Bordeaux.

While India’s vines are in
the Northern Hemisphere, growing conditions are unique. The
growing season is from October to January, and harvest takes
place between January and March. Sula’s logo, a mustachioed
sun-face in the traditional folk art style of the Warli
tribe of Maharastra, affirms that there is no lack of sun
shining on the Deccan Plateau. Nights are cool (45 to 5O
degrees F) and days are warm (75 to 😯 degrees F). Wines
show good natural acidity and tartaric acid is not
added.

Sula’s planting program is
ambitious but not over-zealous. Thirty of the 3OO acres are
planted to vine, with an anticipated cap of 15O by 2OO6.
“This is a huge agricultural project in our region, so we
have government cooperation.” Red grapes that have shown
well so far are Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz (needs
thinning, cooling) and Zinfandel. “We’re still figuring out
which other reds to plant.” Samant says that the vines grow
so vigorously that two prunings a year are required. As in
Maui, excellent wines are also made and prized from tropical
fruits like pineapple and passion fruit.

Samant mentions recycling
cardboard boxes (wax-free in India) by shredding them with
the pomace of spent grapes to form an odorless, friable
substrate for the soil in newly planted vineyards. This
conservation of materials recalls my own memories observing
the fastidious, marvelous no-waste principal at work in
India. Cows roam about and eat the banana-leaf ‘plates’
discarded outside rural restaurants. The cows produce milk
and manure. People press the cow-pies on mud walls to dry,
then peel them off as fuel for their stoves. The stoves cook
the food served to people on banana-leaves. And the cycle
renews itself.

Sula employs 3OO people,
the largest employer in the village of Nasik. Agriculture in
India is still extremely backward, with ox-drawn plows,
ancient techniques and phalanxes of cheap labor. Samant is
proud to be turning things around economically for his area.
“When we first started,” he recalls, “there was only one
motorcycle in the village, now several of my employees own
them.”

Sula’s two entries into the
US market at present are Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc.
The Chenin Blanc, cold-fermented in stainless, has a dry
nose, fruity presence, silky texture, and a fairly lengthy
sweet finish afforded by 1.5% residual sugar. It shows
food-friendly acidity with little mineral flavors. The
Sauvignon Blanc has a citric note (lime) but not as much
edge, and finishes dry. Both have substantial 13.5%
alcohol.

We tried Sula’s Blancs with
an array of Tamarind Bay’s well-crafted dishes. The
Sauvignon showed best with kabobs of asparagus and green
pea, and scallops with chili, turmeric, and coriander leaf.
The Chenin was delicious both with tandoori chicken (more
hot and less pink than usual) and grilled mahi mahi in a
sauce of rye seed, tomato, and ground almonds.

These wines have plenty of
stiff competition in their price point, but their pleasing
smoothness and good acidity, as well as the geographical
connection, has been carrying weight in the booming
expansion of Pan-Asian restaurants.

By Spring of 2OO5 we’ll see
three additions to the line: a Sparkling Brut (largely
Chenin Blanc and other varietals), a light red (2OO3 Shiraz)
and an off-dry blush rose of Zinfandel. Sula also produces,
but does not yet export, small quantities of Late Harvest
Chenin Blanc (15.5% residual sugar) and barrel-aged
Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon.

“We’re at the low end of a
long, steep curve in winning over the home market,” admits
Samant cheerfully. “Maharashthra state imposes a high import
duty on imported wines, and has eliminated the tax usually
imposed on local alcohol products. Our fancy hotels allow
visiting foreigners to bring in a few wines for personal
consumption duty-free.”

Wine consumption among the
Indian populace is traditionally miniscule. The Hindu
majority tends to abstain from all alcohol, despite
recommendations in ancient Hindi texts of somrass (‘grape
juice’) and draksha saz (a low-alcohol, herbed grape wine)
for ayurvedic medicinal treatments. Muslims (a large
minority) similarly abstain due to the Koran’s forbidding.
The Anglo-Indian minority – perhaps 1O% nationally – while
no strangers to alcohol consumption, have, like Americans,
been reared in a social milieu that traditionally favored
beer and spirits. Economic constraints are equally daunting
– a bottle of Sula Chenin Blanc in Bombay costs $1O, surely
at least a laborer’s day wage.

Samant reckons India’s
wine-consuming population to be about 1%. “But,” he points
out optimistically, “that is 1% of 1 billion people.” Of
course Western tastes have lately pervaded India from East
and West, from Hollywood cinema to Australian tourists. In
the thriving metropolis of Bombay (aka Mumbai) with its four
thousand bars, the tipple of choice is turning toward
wine.

“When people threw a party
ten years ago, they’d drink five bottles of scotch and five
bottles of wine. Today, they drink 2 bottles of scotch and
2O bottles of wine.”

Sula sold 7O thousand cases
last year, 5O in the home market and 2O abroad (mainly US at
present). “We started in 1998, and our sales volume has
doubled annually ever since.” Despite the hefty import tax,
2O% of wines sold in India are imports from France, Italy,
South Africa, and Australia. Sula’s portfolio for India
includes wines in the Dreyfus Ashby Group, such as
Taittinger, Ruffino and Hardy’s.

Samant expects to tackle
the British market next year. Far from the days of the
British Raj, with its cooked vintage ports and off-year
clarets, India today is in the house of the rising sun in
the wine world.

“Indian wine!” you muse.
“What next?” The sleeping dragon of China.