If any wine rule should be unassailable, it is “be wary of wine in plastic bottles.” Especially ones shaped like grenades or artillery pieces. “After Eight”, produced by South Goa Distilleries in Guirdolim, Chandor, Salcete, Goa in November of 2009 (batch 19). The pictures on the label suggest that this “Premium Vinho Tinto” is made from grapes, to the strength of 14% abv, and retails for the heady sum of 180 Rupees. US $4.50. Seems to me rather steep, anyways, considering that decent wine can be had for similar prices, in more, er, reputable, wine regions.
What can I say about this beverage? It’s sweet, it’s alcoholic, it smells vaguely of cough syrup, and tastes (charitably) like watered down port (spiked with cough syrup.) I hesitate to say it’s simply an imperfect or even bad wine, as I’m not entirely convinced that it’s wine in the first place. I sense a hangover coming on shortly.
While on a quick stop in Bangalore, I made a detour to Dodaballapur in the Nandi Hills area north of the city to visit India’s “premier” wine producer, 
Up the driveway.
Through the doorway.
Across the courtyard.
And not directly, but on to the vineyards. Most of the grapes are grown here, with a “small” amount grown in the Naushik Valley, near Pune in Maharashtra. Total area under vine is about 200 hectares, yielding approximately 7.2 million litres per annum (800,000 cases), which it was suggested is small in comparison to the likes of Sula and Chateau Indage. 40% is exported, to the U.S., U.K., France, Australia, New Zealand and Japan! Of the remainder, 53% is red and 47% is white. Funny sort of statistics, not sure where the two rosés produced fit into the equation, but this is what they said. It was explained to me that the domestic market far prefers red to white, particularly with various Indian cuisines, though that might be better reflected by other producers. In practice though, white wines are widely outnumbered by red on restaurant menus, so perhaps it’s true.
Sauvignon Blanc. Other white varietals grown are Chenin Blanc, Viognier, and Clairette. The soil is primarily limestone, with very good drainage. Daily irrigation is required, almost 3 litres per vine per day, all with collected monsoon rainwater.
Cabernet Sauvignon (pictured), Syrah and Grenache are the red varietals under vine. Harvest is expected by the end of April. While there is a second flowering that takes place in the fall, Grover chooses not to have multiple harvests, and prunes back in October. Veraison for the spring crop occurs in February. The varietals grown were selected after 9 years of research. Apparently, merlot and chardonnay are not successful in the local climate, and vine life is limited to about 25 years. This does make me wonder why there isn’t more of an attempt to try this sort of venture in cooler climes. If I’m remembering correctly, the Cabernet vines we saw are 8 years old, while the Sauvignon Blanc vines are 15.
With 95°F heat, I was wondering what they did for temperature control. Walking into the facility, it felt as if they’d air-conditioned the entire place, but it turns out that each fermenting tank is individually wrapped and cooled with chilled water. 
Oak is currently only used for the flagship, La Réserve, an intentionally internationally styled red cuvee a la Michel Rolland, but these are being used experimentally with the whites. I was interested to learn that another of the consultants here is George Vesselle, who I’d met over dinner at the 
Oxygenating the wine. The fumes were powerful and heady. My eyes were burning at any rate.
Crates used for the hand-harvesting.
Is this what Sunil Gavaskar was talking about during the 20/20 semifinal between Chenai Super Kings and Deccan Chargers? Fingers-up versus fingers-down fielding? No? Well, this room is used to cool the grapes down after picking and before crushing. Basically, a big air-conditioned room to bring the grapes down to about 70°F.
The sorting / de-stemming kit. All the reds are de-stemmed, sometimes the whites are not.
Centrifugal presser.
Filtration machine.
The chemistry lab is behind the windows.
Bottles being “rested” before labeling. These were screw-capped, so I’m guessing they were only laid horizontally to maximize space.
Only La Réserve is bottled with natural cork. Everything else is screw-capped.
Labelling.
The barrel room for La Réserve is subterranean, I’d estimate about 200 barrels. La Réserve is roughly 80% cab / 20% syrah, each varietal barrel-aged separately prior to blending, 1/3 each in new, 1 y.o. and 2 y.o. French oak barrels from Saury.
Tour over, time to taste! This not very Indian-looking young lady is a business school intern from France, whose parents are winemakers in Chateauneuf du Pape.
The tasting room
We tasted four wines from the Art Collection, which is released approximately 1 year after the harvest. The labels are all by contemporary Indian artists, and change with each release. There is also a Shiraz, a Chenin Blanc, and a “Blanc des Blancs”, which is not a sparkling wine at all (though there are plans for a sparkling Chenin in the future.) We did not try the basic Santé line, nor La Réserve, the only wine I’ve had any prior experience with. Will have to see if I can find a bottle before I leave (apparently Grover is hard to come by in Madras.) 
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