Feature: Vineyard Musings
Vineyard tours are catching on
There’s no better way to spend a lazy Sunday in Bangalore than to go wine-tasting, discovers Sheila Kumar.
Some days are so typical of our city, Bangalore should take out a patent on them.
This Sunday is one such. The sun is playing peek-aboo with the clouds, there’s a small breeze lifting the brims of our sun hats and the air is redolent with the fragrance of ripening grape.
I’m standing before a huge bunch of green grapes which hold steady to the vine. And I’m wondering if I should strike a pose from that vineyard movie A Walk in the Clouds. Actually, Bangalore has already witnessed and experienced the first flush of vineyard hysteria.
The soil hereabouts being excellent for growing grapes, the next step—of turning grapes into wine—was but inevitable, though it did take some time. But once the business came to the city’s outskirts via a handful of wine makers, there was no looking back.
And, even as a splendid selection of reds, whites, roses and sparkling wines were making their debut, Bangaloreans were making it a wholly pleasurable, interactive process.
A few years ago, tours of vineyards, wine-tasting trips, a morning spent stomping grapes in a barrel, wine fairs, wine education courses, all were nouvelle entertainment for city denizens and one experience they embraced most happily.
Locally made wines flooded five-star restaurants and the shelves of upmarket departmental stores, and people were glugging it down like it was cola. Le vin, it had arrived.
What’s more, wine proved that it was in for the long term. Even as immediate interest in vineyards faded, even as public attention moved onto the next big thing (in-house breweries, in this case), wine has sustained steady sales in Bangalore. Shiraz, Merlot, Cabernets, sparkling table wines, rose, all continue to find enthusiastic drinkers and records for just the last one year show that 4,05,000 litres have been quaffed in Bangalore.
Apparently, red wines score big (55 per cent of sales) followed closely behind by white wines at 40 per cent. A mature approach by the state government in granting wine licenses is another boost factor.
What has further helped sales of wine is that this drink goes well when paired with Indian food, despite purists scoffing at the very notion. People have started to cook with wine, join wine clubs, effortlessly make it part of their everyday lives, divesting it of any myth or mystery.
Heritage Wines set themselves up in 2004 and have been steadily making their presence felt in and around Bangalore since then. Here at the Heritage vineyard in Channapatna, there are eight acres of land given over to vineyards, the rest comprising the winery and restaurant. The winery is a large barn-like room where the grapes are sorted, pulped, fermented. The free run wine is pumped into huge tanks; the last steps in the process involve filtration and bottling.
People go about their tasks quietly and efficiently, and the bottling, labelling and sealing conveyor belt gleams silver in the soft light coming through the open doors. Back at the wine parlour, we watch a short film on the setting up of the Heritage vineyard and the making of the brand’s wines.
Heritage, with a line-up of six wines—Cabernet red wine, Shiraz red wine, Chenin Blanc white wine, Twist bubbly wine, Heritage 2000 premium wine, Heritage sweet red wine—claims to have cornered 75 per cent of Bangalore’s wine market.
The wine tasting that follows makes for much fun, given that we become instant poseurs with the wine glasses, studying the glow of colour intently, swirling, sniffing, gargling just a wee bit and in as genteel fashion as possible, tasting but refusing to spit, pinkie held out stiffly all the while.
Me, I’ve always been a Philistine (how I asked for dessert wines all over the Napa Valley is a story for another day) so I took quite a shine to the fruit-flavoured Twist and Chenin Blanc rather than the other undoubtedly excellent Heritage dry whites and red I took quite a shine to the fruit-flavoured Twist and Chenin Blanc rather than the other undoubtedly excellent Heritage dry whites and reds.
These are not top-draw wines but if you are looking for light table wines with enough body, then these wines are excellent. The best part of the tour is yet to come. We troop out to the in-house restaurant Epulo for lunch and sit outside partaking of more wine (but of course) as the dishes come to the table one by one. ‘Epulo’ is feast in Latin and at the end of the meal, I had to agree.
The menu lists Continental as well as desi dishes (even a dum biriyani) all cooked to perfection with none of the sauces overwhelming the dish itself.more wine (but of course) as the dishes come to the table one by one. ‘Epulo’ is feast in Latin and at the end of the meal, I had to agree. The menu lists Continental as well as desi dishes (even a dum biriyani) all cooked to perfection with none of the sauces overwhelming the dish itself.
‘Epulo’ is feast in Latin and at the end of the meal, I had to agree. The menu lists Continental as well as desi dishes (even a dum biriyani) all cooked to perfection with none of the sauces overwhelming the dish itself. The dessert menu isn’t the most varied but we did have some amazing ice cream. And of course, when we leave the place, it is with cartons of the good stuff they make here at the Heritage Winery. Luckily for aficionados and unpretentious wine drinkers, Heritage wines aren’t too expensive a proposition at all. All in all, a day well spent.
These are not top-draw wines but if you are looking for light table wines with enough body, then these wines are excellent. The best part of the tour is yet to come. We troop out to the in-house restaurant Epulo for lunch and sit outside partaking of more wine (but of course) as the dishes come to the table one by one.
‘Epulo’ is feast in Latin and at the end of the meal, I had to agree. The menu lists Continental as well as desi dishes (even a dum biriyani) all cooked to perfection with none of the sauces overwhelming the dish itself. The dessert menu isn’t the most varied but we did have some amazing ice cream. And of course, when we leave the place, it is with cartons of the good stuff they make here at the Heritage Winery. Luckily for aficionados and unpretentious wine drinkers, Heritage wines aren’t too expensive a proposition at all. All in all, a day well spent.
The menu lists Continental as well as desi dishes (even a dum biriyani) all cooked to perfection with none of the sauces overwhelming the dish itself. The dessert menu isn’t the most varied but we did have some amazing ice cream.
And of course, when we leave the place, it is with cartons of the good stuff they make here at the Heritage Winery. Luckily for aficionados and unpretentious wine drinkers, Heritage wines aren’t too expensive a proposition at all.
All in all, a day well spent.
http://talkmag.in/cms/trends/item/1694-vineyard-tours-are-catching-on
This appeared in TALK magazine dated 28 June 2013.
All photos by RAHUL PRAJAPATI.
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Sheila Kumar • June 30, 2013
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