Events | 2008

Tasting Event

Sula Vineyards and Robert Joseph, Founder – Indian Wine Challenge hosted eight eminent international wine makers, 25 Nasik winemakers and food & wine journalists for a wine tasting event and a panel discussion. Amongst our distinguished guests was Gina Gallo, of the eponymous famous wine family. The tasting was a unique experience with 40 wines from different Nasik vineyards. 

The entire event was much appreciated by the visitors and wine-makers.  As rightly expressed by Vikram Doctor from ET Bureau - “Such trips in the past have usually comprised of foreign wine writers brought to do discovery/publicity jobs on Indian wine. But this was rather different and interesting. The people invited weren’t writers, but hard-core winemaking professionals and what was being solicited was their frank opinion and advice for Nashik winemakers”

The tasting event was a prelude to the Indian Wine Challenge where the Indian and International wines were to be blind tasted and judged.  IN the afternoon the Robert Joseph-led panel tasted around 40 wines produced by Nashik wineries, where detailed notes were taken and later presented at the panel discussion. The evening event began at 7:30 pm with the tasting of 16 exceptional wines brought by the panel from different winemaking regions like Margaret River, Marlborough, Sonoma Coast, and Piedmont which included Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc wines among the whites and Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Barbera and Barolo wines in the reds.

The panel discussion after the wine tasting was held in Sula’s beautiful open-air amphi-theatre. Robert Joseph introduced the panel to all the wine industry professionals who turned up for the event.

The panel discussion started with the first question - which variety is doing well in India? Chenin Blanc was voted as showing excellent varietal character. Riesling and Viognier also showed good promise. The panel thought that aromatic white wines were the way to go. The style to that wasn’t showing well was the unripe “green” reds like Cabernet Sauvignon and wine producers should rethink about whether to continue with some of these varieties.

The storage of delicate wines in Indian conditions was also addressed - the panel reiterated that storage and proper warehousing was one of the most important needs of this industry. One of the guest asked if it made sense to make fortified wines like Madeira in India which used to come to Indian shores during the British rule in India. The panel said that they were not aware of this segment.

Sulafest 2008