About us | Founders
Rajeev Samant
CEO, Sula Vineyards
Rajeev Samant is one of new India’s entrepreneurial stars. Or sun, rather, given the widespread international recognition the Sula Vineyards’ solar logo has gotten. At the peak of his career as one of the youngest finance managers of Oracle in San Francisco, this Stanford graduate returned home to India with the seemingly crazy idea of growing grapes and making wine. He turned his attentions to a family-owned plot of 30 acres in Nashik, India’s most important table-grape growing region just 180 km from Mumbai. Rajeev quickly realised that the terroir and climate there were, in fact, ideally suited to growing wine grapes. Rajeev teamed up with Kerry Damskey, a leading winemaker from California’s Sonoma Valley, and planted the first vines in Nashik in 1997.
Despite a great deal of initial resistance - the wine business in India was practically nonexistent, and getting a winery license was difficult - Rajeev’s dream to craft good wine in India has quickly become a reality. His distinctly Californian philosophy of a winery open to the public has sparked a wine revolution, and today Nashik is India’s wine capital, with 30 wineries producing more than 75% of India’s wine.
Today Sula has firmly established itself as India’s leading premium wine brand.
“I can’t imagine anyone who is happier with his job. Hugh Hefner, perhaps,” says the effervescent entrepreneur with a twinkle in his eye. Sula’s sun is showing no signs of setting anytime soon.
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