The Log Of My Life - Blog by Chandan Malvankar

It had been a long time since we had a 'Just the guys' weekend. So we had decided to keep the last weekend just for the guys. All the married couples were informed in advance to take care of their women and convince them to allow their hubbies to be off their arms just for this one weekend. But was it because of the lack of convincing skills in the men, the dominance of women in our group, or a mutual feeling of 'wont spare my spouse on a weekend for friends', the guys came back with a board hanging from their neck that said 'Wife Says No!' (Just Kidding!). Except for Manish. Roopali and Manish is one couple unlike a couple, that's the best part. They love to spend time with the group rather than just by themselves. And they both give enough space to each other. Roops, Manish, I love you guys! :P Roopali was happy, in fact overjoyed, that Manish would be gone for the weekend, which meant she had the whole weekend just to herself. So the four of us, Manish, Nanu, Pedro and I decided to leave at 2AM on Saturday. However, as the night rolled on, the eyelids rolled down. Finally, at 8:30AM, we all were ready to leave. We kept arguing about where to go. Now that we were just four, some thought it would be too long a drive to Nasik, the place we had decided earlier. But Pedro suggested 'Chandu, you are behind the steering. So let's stop arguing and take us wherever you wanna go'. And hence the destination, 200kms from Mumbai, Sula Vineyards, Nasik.

It wasn't a tiring journey till Nasik. The roads from Mumbai to Nasik are well developed to provide a smooth ride with an average of 70-80 kmph. To add to that the landscapes stretching alongside the highway are picturesque. This keeps the drive pleasant. Apart from the vineyards, Nasik does not really have any major attractions. Moreover, you would not even find good enough accommodation within the 10km circle around the Sula vineyards. Sula has it's own resort called 'Beyond' (initially it was just one bungalow, which was later extended to a 30 room resort), but it's expensive (good for a couple who is out for a romantic weekend though). So if you are planning to stay in Nasik, then Tapovan resort is the place we have tried and would recommend, which is 12kms away from Sula vineyards. This place is a kilometer away from Tiger Hills Vineyards (A brand of Chateau Indage), which you may plan to visit on your way back to Mumbai. Tiger Hills vineyards also provides accommodation, cheaper than Sula, expensive than Tapovan.

When to Visit
Harvesting months for grapes in Nasik are from January to March and October to December, however Sula utilizes only the January to March period to cultivate grapes. This is the time when the temperature is cool and the vineyards would be flooded with a variety grapes.

Secondly, though the place is great in the morning and afternoon, it is awesome in the evening. Sula has an open roof wine-tasting café which opens to a bed of grape farms, a setting sun on the left and a cool breeze flowing in making the tasting experience heavenly. Sula also has a restaurant in the premises that serves a wide range of Indian and Italian cuisines at pretty moderate charges. The restaurant and the café are open from 11AM to 11PM on the weekends (not sure about weekdays).

Sula also provides a Vineyard tour followed by a wine tasting session for five different wines. This is charged at R150 per person. It's quite a learning and I would recommend the tour to everyone planning to visit this place. It's a half an hour tour explaining the wine-making process in brief, the different varieties of grapes produced in India and abroad, the nomenclature of wines, wine etiquette, etc.



Farming
There are around 3000 varieties of grapes around the world, out of which Indian climate conditions are favorable for only a handful of varieties. Out of these handful, Sula cultivates 11 varieties of grapes for wine production. One thing to notice in the farms is that at the beginning and at the end of each row of the grape trees, there is a rose plant. Until now, I was under the impression (as someone had told me) that the color of the rose indicates the color of wine produced from the grape. Any lay person would think that green grapes produce white wine and the black ones produce the red wine. However, this is not the case. All the grapes can produce white wine since it uses only the pulp part of the grape and not the skin. The skin is used to give the color and produce the red wine. So the color of the rose does not matter. It is in fact planted for early detection of a pest attack. The pest attacks the rose plant before the grape plant and hence control measures can be taken before the pest attacks the grape farms.

Sula produces wine from 1500 acres of vineyards, 400 acres of which are owned by Sula and the rest of the production is outsourced.

The Process
White wine is produced using the whole bunch of grapes (including the stem and leaves). The bunches are put into a crushing machine that punctures the berry, extracts the pulp and sends it for further processing. However, the red wine is produced using only the berries. Hence, the initial process is done in a destemmer that removes the stems and leaves using the science of centrifugal force thus separating the berries. The further process remains the same for red and white wine.

The most important activity in the whole wine-making process is the fermentation. This is naturally done by the yeast present on the grape (the white film that appears on the berries of a bunch of grapes), but this is uncontrolled. So the fermentation is induced using controlled yeast whose fermentation rate is already known. To do this, first the natural yeast is killed by cooling the pulp to 6 degrees Celsius, after which the controlled yeast is added to the juice.

After different levels of filtration to remove impurities and foreign substance from the juice, the wine is stored in huge steel cylinders, where they are allowed to ferment at a controlled temperature (generally raging from 20-24 degrees Celsius) for 6-8 months. Sula has a capacity to store 7 million liters of wine in the cylindrical tanks. For certain aged wines that have peculiar tastes and aromas like vanilla, cherry, oak, the juice is stored in wooden barrels made generally from oak (the other woods used being chestnut, cherry and mulberry). The flavors are induced not by adding the actual flavors but by the reaction between the wood and the yeast and also depends on the type of grape.

The alcohol content of the wine also depends on the aging. The more the age, more the fermentation, and more alcohol would be released by the yeast. The darkness of the red wine, which is produced by the skin of grape, goes the other way. The more the age, less darker would be the wine produced (Except for Rosé, which is a young wine taken off very early during fermentation, when the skin has not yet given out it's complete color to the wine).

A sparkling wine is a wine with a fizz. The fizz is given by the carbon-dioxide, which is released by the yeast during the fermentation. In normal wine this carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, whereas for a sparkling wine, it is trapped inside the bottle by corking the bottle before the fermentation is complete. The yeast is later removed by keeping the bottle neck down (allowing the yeast to settle down at the neck) and freezing just the neck part to minus 6 degrees Celsius. The frozen part contains the yeast which is popped out and the bottle is corked again trapping the carbon dioxide inside the bottle.

The Nomenclature
The different names of the wines come from the type of grape used to make that wine. For example, Chenin is a type of grape cultivated in France and used in the white wine Chenin Blanc (Blanc is french for White), Sauvignon and Chardonnay are other examples. Some wines are a mix of two or more grape varieties, e.g. Cabernet Sauvignon.

Many of the wines also get their names from the place where they are produced. For example, Port wines are wines produced in Portugal. Champagne is nothing but a sparkling wine produced in Champagne, France.

Rosé (sometimes called Blush) is a young pink wine, extracted at a very early age during the fermentation process.

There is another type of wine called semi-sparkling wine in which the carbon-dioxide is not produced by the yeast, but artificially added to the wine. Sula's Dia is a semi-sparkling wine.

 

Wine Storage
The wine bottles are stored in a cool dark place in a horizontal position. Wines need to be prevented from direct exposure to sunlight and heat as it might lead to further fermentation or certain chemical reactions that would produce an unwanted taste in the wine. The bottle is kept horizontal so that the wine touches the cork and keeps it moist helping it to keep the bottle airtight. If the cork dries up, the wine would come in contact with the air and perish.

Once opened, the wine should be kept in a refrigerator and consumed within a couple of days, beyond which the taste of the wine would deteriorate due to reaction with the air. Such a wine, which has changed the taste, is not gone bad and need not be thrown away. It can be used for cooking purposes.

Wine Etiquette
The etiquette start right from serving the wine to gulping it.

While serving the wine the wine bottle should be held by the base and not by the neck or stem. This allows to maintain the temperature of the bottle and hence the temperature of the wine. White wines are serves chilled whereas Red wines are served at room temperature. While drinking a white wine, there should be minimal contact between the glass and the hand of the person drinking the wine, to maintain the temperature. It is therefore that white wines are served in flute glasses (or wine glasses), which should always be held by the stem of the glass. On the other hand, since red wines are served at room temperature, the contact between hand and glass does not raise the temperature as much as in case of white wine, and hence are served in goblets (Goblets are held by slipping the stem of the goblet in between the finger webs and using the palm to rest the glass).

A point to note is that the wine culture is not native to India. It has been acquired from Europe, where the room temperature is generally below 20 degrees Celsius. Hence, in India most of the wines are served chilled.

Once the wine is poured into your glass, you need to follow the four S's: See, Swirl, Smell and Sip.
See - Check the consistency in the color of the wine. Also, you can tell the alcohol contents of a wine by looking at the wine drops that stick to the glass. If they form droplets (less viscous) then the wine is not aged and has less alcohol. If there are no drops, but you can see streams of thick wine (called wine tears), then it's a well aged wine with high alcohol content.
Swirl - Swirling the glass helps release the aromas and taste from the wine. This is not done for sparkling wines.
Smell - Smelling the wine helps you experience the rich flavors generated in the wine due to aging, fermenting and reactions with the wooden barrels.
Sip - Sipping the wine also helps you identify the age of wine. Young wines are generally dry and leave you with dry gums, which isn't the case with aged wines that are pretty smooth and soothing for the throat.

Red wines go well with red meat cuisines (lamb, beef, pork, etc. that generally have red gravy) whereas white wines go well with chicken, sea food and vegetarian cuisines (pastas, etc.).

After all these learnings, our senses were further satisfied by the ambiance of the café in the evening, the music and of course the wines.

The next day we also paid a quick visit to the Tiger Hills Vineyards, a brand of Indage group that has been in the wine business for longer than Sula. Some great wines from Indage group are Chardonnay (not produced by Sula), Cabernet Sauvignon (Chantilli), Ivy and some new tastes under the brand Tiger Hills.

I have added this place to the list of places I would love to revisit and I hope out of all the other places in that list, I visit Sula Vineyards again very soon.