Sula Vineyards
THE FACTS
THE STORY
The Sula sun has been rising over an ever-expanding horizon since its first wines were released in 2000. Rajeev Samant, the winery’s founder, hails from Mumbai by way of California: a scholarship at Stanford University was followed by a few years at Oracle in Silicon Valley before he returned to his native Maharashtra to farm a 20-acre family plot. He had tried his luck with mangoes, roses, teakwood and table grapes before planting the first wine grapes in 1996.
As the Indian wine industry was growing at 25–30 per cent per annum, the young Samant realised he had struck gold. He engaged the consultancy services of Kerry Damskey, a North California wine veteran, who has since been styled as a master winemaker. He continues to visit Sula in Nashik, but with plans in place for his retirement, the hands-on day-to-day winemaking is entrusted to second-generation local head winemaker Karan Vasani. The New Zealand-trained Vasani did vintages in Australia and California as well before he returned to India to work under Ajoy Shaw, his predecessor as Sula’s head winemaker. The winds of change have put young Indian winemaking talent firmly in the driving seat while international consultants, or flying winemakers as they are often called, provide a more modest contribution than before.
50,000 bottles of Sula were sold in the first year after the launch of the brand in 2000, and sales grew to 1.05 million cases by 2022, a spectacularly dynamic expansion by any measure. It makes Sula the largest producer in India, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the entire domestic wine production. Moreover, only a quarter of the annual production falls into the sub-entry-level category, a clear sign of the premiumisation of the Indian wine market. Sula wines are available throughout India as well as in numerous export markets, from Japan via the UK to the USA.
Aggressive growth has, however, eroded the sole control of the Samant family. The once party-loving founder and promoter Rajeev Samant has not only become a family man, but has simultaneously transformed the winery business into a corporate, which was ready for its IPO on the Bombay Stock Exchange in late 2022. Now a public company, the shareholding pattern is diverse but still includes Verlinvest, the original private equity fund that has witnessed a start-up maturing into the most significant wine brand in India. The Samant family and Verlinvest control just about half of the shares in Sula Vineyards and Rajeev Samant remains at the helm as the MD & CEO of a diversified wine business focusing on domestic production and hospitality as well as the importing and distribution of foreign wines.
The original small winery building and the once adjacent sparkling-wine unit have been replaced by The Source, a resort echoing the style of a Provençal country home, albeit at a larger scale. The old tank hall is now the conference room of the resort and the entire Nashik site, on the outskirts of the mid-sized Maharashtrian city, has grown into a combination of extensive industrial production unit and well-run tourism attraction. Enormous in size, the central winery attracts an ever growing number of visitors each year (360,000 in 2022–23), all eager to get a taste of the wine country lifestyle as well as the wines during guided tours and tutored tasting.
Sula’s open-cellar-door concept is indispensable when introducing Indian consumers to wine and shows their intensive focus on consumer engagement, which has made Sula the wine evangelist of India. The Tasting Room, a wine terrace with vineyard views, heaves with visitors as early as midday, and Rāsā, the restaurant, caters to famished travellers, serving them Indian and Italian dishes. Beyond by Sula, a collection of modernist, minimalist villas overlooking the serene waters of Gangapur Lake, is a popular wine resort. A two-day contemporary-music festival named Sula Fest was hosted at the winery’s amphitheatre, attracting 12,000 visitors every year, but it fell victim to the Covid pandemic and has yet to be resurrected.
The success of Sula hinges on the combination of a few strategic factors: uncompromising consumer centricity in product creation, the wine lifestyle offered through hospitality, championing of sustainability and, most importantly, making and delivering wines of reliable technical quality to each consumer segment. All five production units – three in Maharashtra and two in Karnataka – follow strict quality assurance and control policies in both vineyard and winery. The final product is then channelled through a tightly managed system of warehouses and distributors to ensure that each bottle of wine spends the shortest possible time between leaving the winery and being poured into a glass. Sula has secured the brand’s prominence through heavy investments in exclusive deals and tie-ups with their distributors.
Rajeev Samant successfully grabbed the opportunity opened up by the meltdown of Chateau Indage and put Sula at the forefront of what is known as the Indian wine revolution. He cherishes the responsibility this incurs, which is evident in Sula’s commitment to quality, innovation, the environment and building new markets.
THE ESTATE
Unsurprisingly, Sula owns very few vineyards and supports its high-speed growth by relying on an extensive system of contract growers in both Maharashtra and Karnataka. One of the three biggest challenges, according to MD & CEO Rajeev Samant, is finding new farmers and contractors.
The focus is on a few key varieties. While Sula claims to have introduced Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc to the Indian subcontinent, it also grows Viognier and Chardonnay – both particularly notable in the Dindori sub-region – as well as Riesling. With regard to reds, Shiraz is the most important, and Sula also produces Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Malbec and Grenache. Samant revealed that he did not believe Cabernet Sauvignon was well suited to the Indian terroir.
There is also extensive experimentation with new varieties, such as Gewürztraminer, Tempranillo, Mourvèdre, Merlot, Petit Syrah and Alicante Bouschet, and new clones of existing ones, as for example, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. The simultaneous challenges for India’s largest winery are product quality and production quantity that would satisfy the thirst of Indian consumers together with the ability to launch new products.
Most vines are grafted on Dog Ridge rootstock, and trials have been done with SO4, R-110 and 3309 rootstocks in different soil types, too. There are still some old blocks of vines on their own roots yielding small amounts of fruit for high-end products. As far as training is concerned, the standard is the cordon trellis and vertical shoot positioning to optimise sun exposure, which helps to achieve the ideal ripeness. In older plantations, however, there are still some pergola-trained vines.
Speaking of ripeness, because of Nashik’s significant diurnal temperature range, the nights are cool, at times chilly, during the growing season; as a result, as Ajoy Shaw, the previous head winemaker at Sula, observed, Cabernet Sauvignon here takes nearly 185 days to ripen fully, which is very similar to other Cabernet-growing regions of the world. This ensures relatively good sugar maturity, but the wines may retain an element of the classic herbal and peppery character.
Admittedly, Indian Cabernet can also taste rubbery and smoky, the reason for which, says Karah Vasani, Sula’s head winemaker, is difficult to pin down. He suspects that vineyards with high nitrogen are prone to develop this unpleasant flavour, and phenolic ripeness also plays a role. That said, Sula has made good progress to eliminate this unwanted character through a combination of improved canopy management (opening it up at and after veraison, resulting in better physiological ripeness of fruit grown in Nashik vineyards) and sourcing Cabernet from alternative regions with less diurnal variation, such as Solapur and Sangli, which is a clear sign that terroir differences exist in India as well.
The monsoon peters out in Nashik earlier than in Bangalore (now officially Bengaluru), where the north-easterly winds prolong the rainy season. This facilitates earlier pruning in Nashik and subsequently an earlier harvest, allowing the grapes to retain better acidity. Sula has consciously advanced pruning dates to as early as possible to lend a fresher and crisper style to their white wines. Nobody is immune to the ill effects of climate change though. Sula reports, for example, that the end of the monsoon is regularly delayed or there is late unseasonal rain in October and November, which translates into challenges with rot and maturity, decreasing yield and an adverse influence on wine quality. Equally, a heavy monsoon can translate into a larger than desirable yield, as in 2017, when Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc were pushed from 15 to 22 tonnes per hectare.
Efficient management of vineyards requires the application of a uniform viticultural policy as well as a close relationship with the grape suppliers. Sula’s viticultural team endeavours to impart knowledge and best practice methods to the growers so as to enable them to grow the best possible quality of fruit. The analytical parameters of quality are set out in black and white, and so the winemakers are free to refuse grapes that fail to meet requirements. Farmers are incentivised in a number of ways. For example, the contracted quantity is maximised in tonnage per acre and the sugar level must reach the set standard. There is no longer a premium offered on grapes delivered in the early morning, but penalties are imposed for unhealthy fruit and crates that are insufficiently clean.
Sula wines are made in five different wineries across India. Of the three production units in Maharashtra, two are owned by Sula and the company leases ND Wines. Together, they represent a total capacity of 13.5 million litres. In Karnataka, Sula brands are produced at the facilities of Indian Ambiance, which underwent an extensive upgrade in 2014 and crushes grapes that produce about 500,000 litres of wine a year. In 2017, Sula acquired the former Heritage Grape Winery, located in Chanapatna along the busy Bangalore–Mysore highway, and invested heavily to create a 1.1 million-litre capacity winery. (For further details, see Domaine Sula in the Karnataka section of the guide.)
Being the largest producer in India, Sula’s wineries are massive sanctuaries of winemaking. Tanks tower high above the visitor, as do the French and American oak barrels in the temperature-controlled ageing rooms. During vintage the place buzzes with energy, and at other times of the year the operations run very smoothly: bottling, adding liqueur de tirage to the sparkling wines, refilling the riddling machines, disgorging sparkling wines, dispatching consignments to consumers across the country.
There is particular focus on green credentials. All efforts are aligned to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and progress is published annually in a dedicated sustainability report. Marking its ongoing commitment, in 2019 Sula appointed a head of sustainability, who came with impeccable career credentials gained in North America, the responsibility then transiting directly within the remit of the MD & CEO. Sula joined the International Wineries for Climate Action (IWCA) group in 2021. The winery buildings and stainless steel tanks, all manufactured in India, are heavily insulated to make them energy efficient when it comes to temperature control. The tank halls are equipped with light tunnels, transmitting and distributing sunlight in such a way that there is no need for artificial lighting except when it is dark outside. The roofs are fitted with solar panels, which provide around 65 per cent of the total energy used. Sula employees are provided with e-bikes or electric vehicles, and charging points are available to both employees and visitors free of charge. In addition, rainwater is harvested for use in both the winery and vineyard. The percentage of bottles sourced from India increased from 65 to 97 by 2022. Gas cylinders have been replaced by hot plates, organic waste is turned into biogas and after the grapes have been pressed for wine, the seeds are processed into cooking oil. There is no energy or resource wasted at Sula!
THE WINES
The quality of Sula wines stretches over a wide spectrum, from sub-entry-level sweet Indian port to premium barrel-aged red and white wines. The proportion of Indian port is on the decline, whilst the demand for premium wines, those sold at a price higher than INR 500 per bottle, is on the rise. Premium wines account for 75 per cent of Sula’s sales. In addition to premiumisation, Sula has also observed a shift in its sold portfolio from 70 per cent white and 30 per cent red to 65 per cent red, 25 per cent white and 10 per cent rosé wines. Quality in the glass is guaranteed through an extremely tightly managed distribution system, where lead times are minimised to six months, distributors’ warehouses are regularly checked for temperature, and trucks are scheduled to drive at night, though where they park when the sun is at its height is uncertain. All these measures help Sula deliver fresh and clean wines across India.
The style has seen a major shift over the past years from riper, richer, bigger and more robust wines to fresher, crisper, lighter and fruitier ones. There is a conscious focus on crafting fruit-forward wines across the brands. The transition to a readily approachable spectrum of styles has been supported by a slight increase in the residual sugar levels or adjusting production methods where needed. Among the whites, the Riesling must be singled out, as it has come such a long way and is a truly fantastic aromatic and refreshing wine. There is also the Dindori Reserve Viognier, charming with its mix of aromatically intense floral tones and creamy roundedness, but equally the Dindori Chardonnay needs a mention too, with its toasty and creamy mid-palate.
With regard to the use of oak, American barriques dominate the cellar. They lend a variety of sweet spice to the wines, such as vanilla and cocoa, making them approachable while providing complexity. French oak barrels are also used. Barrel ageing, however, is kept to a minimum considering the overall quantity produced. For explanation one could refer to both the Indian consumer’s taste and the cost of such production.
Sparkling winemaking has gone through an enormous transformation, driven by both the preference of the Indian wine consumer for fruitier styles and the compelling financial argument of shorter stock-holding requirements and lower labour costs. The old underground cellar, where half-a-million bottles of sparkling-wine stock used to undergo secondary fermentation in the bottle, has been replaced by a new and modern warehouse. Initially, this allowed the use of gyro-palates, which mechanised riddling in the winemaking process and were eventually replaced by Charmat tanks, used in the large-scale production of fruit-forward sparkling wines, such as Prosecco in Italy. The transition of Sula, the largest sparkling-wine producer in India, to the largely tank method is significant: it clearly seeks to differentiate its products from others in the market. The brut rosé has been discontinued and only two bottle-fermented sparkling wines remain, both relatively late additions: a brut Chardonnay from Dindori and a sweet sparkling Shiraz, the only such wine in India.
THE LABELS
The Sula portfolio includes ten brands with 35 different wines, from sub-entry to premium level. Port Wine 1000, Samara, Madera, Dia, Mosaic and Satori represent the modest bottom end of the product pyramid. These wines have varying levels of sweetness and are extremely fruit-forward and simple.
Port
- Port Gold Sweet Red Wine
- Port 1000
Samara
- red
- white
Madera
- red
- white
- rosé
Dia: packed in can for ease of
consumption.
- red: slightly sparkling in Lambrusco style
- white: slightly sparkling
Mosaic
- red: blend of Grenache and Syrah
- white: blend of Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc
Satori
- red: blend of Merlot and Malbec
Sula: main brand of the winery; with the eponymous moustached sun smiling on their labels, the wines are mostly dry and fermented in stainless steel, and so are all about crisp fresh fruits
- Shiraz-Cabernet blend: the most popular red wine in India, it contains 15% oak-aged wines, and micro-oxygenation further tames the tannins
- Zinfandel
- Sauvignon Blanc
- Chenin Blanc: semi-sweet with 12g/l residual sugar left after the fermentation has been stopped
- Riesling: 18g/l residual sugar and normally lower alcohol at 10.5% abv, it is a truly lovely expression of the variety, so avoid judgements based on the touch of sweetness
- Zinfandel rose: 12g/l residual sugar
- Seco: easy, fruity, sweet, tank method, slightly sparkling wine
- Seco rosé
- Brut: made in the classic method from a blend of Chenin Blanc, Viognier, Chardonnay, Syrah and Pinot Noir, it has 10g/l dosage
- Brut Tropicale rosé: mostly Chenin Blanc with the addition of Pinot Noir and Zinfandel, the dosage is 12 g/l; the red grapes are harvested earlier, in February, to allow for higher acids
- Sparkling Shiraz: India’s only sparkling red, sweet and with a real depth of dark berry fruits.
- Late harvest Chenin Blanc
The
Source:
- Moscato: fragrant, sweet and delicate
- Chenin Blanc Reserve: crisp and dry with toasty oak
- Sauvignon Blanc Reserve: a crisp and zesty white with smoky hint
- Grenache Rosé: pale and creamy, red fruits with a hint of mint
- Cabernet Sauvignon: reminiscent of a fruit-forward Bordeaux from a moderately ripe vintage with some herbaceous tones
Dindori Reserve: made from grapes grown in the Dindori sub-region of Nashik, shows a lively aromatic profile with attractive intensity and a sense of purity; barrel aged, so texture is soft and creamy
- Chardonnay: partially barrel-fermented and barrel-aged, creamy texture.
- Shiraz: barrel aged for 10–12 months
- Viognier: may contain very small, up to 3%, amounts of Roussanne and a maximum of 5% is fermented in neutral barrels
Rasa: first created in 2007 and made only in exceptional vintages, it takes its name from the Sanskrit word for juice (though, as some point out, it also forms an acronym of the name of the founder Rajeev Samant), earlier vintages were chunky and big, the transition to a more supple style evident when tasting 2011 and 2013 side by side, which continued with later vintages too, such as 2019 and 2021; vintage variation is clearly detectable, with 2011, 2016 and 2018 showing good concentration, whilst 2019, 2020 and 2021 are all moderate. This wine is an exciting playground for the winemaker for crafting a premium barrel-aged product if the vintage is deemed up to scratch
- Shiraz: some vintages may contain up to 15% Cabernet Sauvignon; the wine is barrel aged for 13 months in new French oak before bottling; a total of only 1,000 cases produced
- Cabernet Sauvignon: single varietal wine, aged in a mix of French and American oak barrels for 13 months before bottling; only 500 cases produced
- Zinfandel: elegant, rich in red and dark fruits with the herbs of the Mediterranean as well as some toasty oak
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