Blending The New 2007 Vintage At Sula

I've come back to India and Nashik for the past week. It's the last week of May 2007 and my last trip to Sula was in early March in the middle of harvest. Now I'm back to see how the wines, which were only weeks old, taste and to make up what will be bottling blends for Sauvignon, Chenin Blanc, Cabernet/Shiraz and our Dindori Reserve Syrah.

It's hot right now in India. The Monsoon is only a few weeks away, and you can feel the tropical winds in the morning and evening. But it's darned hot in the mid afternoon. In the vineyard, the vines were pruned back to zero buds in early April and now each vine has a lovely green canopy of healthy leaves. Now is the time we are growing leaves for carbohydrate production and storage in the trunk & roots of the vine. Once Monsoon starts in early June, there is very little sun and the vines really slow down. While I haven't been here in Monsoon, my sense is that it's a lot like Seattle, except warmer. It rains and drizzels a lot. The day temperatures max out around 70 degrees. Sounds nice.

I'm very pleased with the progress we've made this year in both the vineyard and the resulting wines. We've assembled a 22,000 case Sauvingnon blend, a 24,000 case Chenin Blanc blend, a 31,000 case Caberne/Shiraz blend and a 10,000 case Dindori Reserve Syrah blend.

What's most exciting is that we have identified three separate lots of wines that are world class in nature. One is a small 100 case lot of Viognier. This is a lovely aprocoty/lichee aromatic wine with bright acidity and and mouth filling texture.

We also have indentified a lot of Sauvignon Blanc that we are going to bottle as our first Dindori Reserve Sauvignon. And the last is a Syrah single vineyard block from our hillside Dindori vineyrads.

In the case of this Syrah lot, it is my feeling that this lot, which I identified in March as being superior and had it barreled down then, it slated to be the first $30.00 wine to be made in India. I can't wait to do winemaker dinners with our Palmeri Bat, Fox and Boar... and a Sula Dindori Block Reserve Syrah. What a treat and fun converstions we will have.

That's all for now.

Kerry

May in Mumbai

Seems like Daisy and I just returned from our very productive visit with Raj -- but indeed it is time to return. I will be in India May 19-30 to blend the wines from our last harvest. Please do let me know if you have any specific questions about our vineyards or winemaking approach and while I'm there I will try keep you "posted," so-to-speak, on the inner workings of SULA, the phenom of Nashik!

I was reminded last week while speaking at the Syrah Symposium in the Santa Inez Valley that I first carried clones into India a decade ago. It has been quite a ride since then and I have loved this adventure!

So, come on along for the next phase...

Celebrating the full moon in Nasik

Daisy here, blogging for the both of us...
We will be leaving Nasik today and driving on the famous road to Mumbai! Our trip up to Nasik was by train and was in a first class cabin with leather sleepers and air conditioning. Now that they know that I am such a hearty gal, we are driving back on a highway known worldwide as an automotive free for all!

It makes me sad to leave the bunglow at Sula, it has been such a perfect visit. For the last week we have been involved in all aspects of the winery from marketing meetings to tracking through the vineyards. Sula is tucked away next to a large hill covered with feathery tropical trees and two temples. Kerry climbs to the top of the hill followed by the three winery dogs every morning before any one is up and the air is still cool. The dogs now expect this walk and stand outside our window like crowing roosters, barking at 5:30 am. They obviously don't understand English because they keep up the chorus despite our pleas until Kerry puts on his boots and heads out for the hill.

Sula's growing at an amazing clip, 40% growth last year alone. The challenge is educating the local farmers, who are grafting from table grapes, in good wine growing viticultural practices. Kerry has been instrumental in this changing grape culture and the local university is now offering a two year viticultural program. The wines are really good! My favorite is the Sauv. Blanc. Sula has just planted 200 new acres and is contracting with many local farmers for new planting. Nasik is over 2,000 years old as has been an agricultural center for all that time, it will be no time at all until the farmers have mastered growing grapes for wine.

This time of year is called Holli and is a celebration of the new year. It matches up with the first full moon of March and is celebrated by throwing bright colored dye at everyone. Dogs, cows, goats and children walk down the street covered in Magenta and blue. The colors represent the flowers that will soon be in bloom and the passing of the old year, erasing all things negative and forgiving transgressions against neighbors and friends. I tried to get our driver to let me out of the car to jump into the exchange of colors, but he ignored me, probably thinking this crazy American in the white blouse.

Tomorrow Kerry and I are headed to Rajasthan, the land of the maharaja.

March in Mumbai

21 hours is a long time to travel, at about 12 hours it becomes a life style. I am still not sure what day you are in, but I suspect it is Friday. Mumbai is a wild and ALIVE city! Beautiful colonel ruins next to neon shrines to Krishna. Zillions of people, all very polite and beautiful to see. Rainbow women everywhere with gold and veils covering their faces. All amazing and unreal. Not everyone would love this altered state of being...the cars don't even select a lane and yet, it seems alright.

Indians love their dogs..really love their dogs. If one had only a scrap they would share the wealth. We arrived and our driver was waiting for us, wisking up our bags and carting our things to an awaiting SUV. We spent the night at Raj's parents home. The house is stately and has a large round driveway with mature tropical plantings and a fleet of cars with drivers for the various businesses. Everything looks very old and very used with rickey stairs that lead up to large dark door, enter and everything is white and bright. Very low key and very proper. The house cooks waited up to take care of us, even though we got in well after midnight. We stayed up with BABA, Raj's dad and drank great single malt scotch until 3:30 am, going to bed with ceiling fans and light cotton covers.

In the morning wild parrots made us keenly aware we were not in Sonoma. What a wonderful wake up call.. we quickly ate a typical Indian breakfast of fresh fruit and cooked grains. the Chi is made at the table and the spices, subdue pace and the calm of the home was a contrast to the wild pace of the morning streets.

to be continued!

The New Vintage

You know what tastes better than a glass of fresh 2006 Sula Sauvignon right now is a cold glass of Kingfisher beer. Man it's hot out right now. In excess of the low 100's. It's hotter than usual and we are in the peak of the Indian summer.

Been a couple of days since I posted last. Two of those days due to the internet being down. Pretty predictable. We've gone through all of the Sauvignon lots, the Zinfandel lots and Cabernet and Shiraz.

Sauvignon is an easy standout. Lovely gooseberry and pretty mown grass. Very Loire Valley like, but not. There is a lovely brightness to the nose and clean crispness to the palate. Really very refreshing and clean. Out of 19 lots, all made the blend except one. I'm very pleased with the results. Each year they seem to get better. This year, there seems to be more texture to the palate. Sauvignon can be a little hard on the finish here and this year they're pretty yummy.

For Zinfandel, all the Zinfandel in India, and I'm guessing that there are hundreds of acres of Zinfandel here now... all came from the cutting that Raj and I made from our winery in Hopland California in 1997 when Raj worked for me that vintage. We made the cuttings on Raj's last day of work and Raj "suitcased" them back to India the following day. Pretty amazing.

The Zinfandel is identifiable as Zinfandel, but again is slightly different. Lovely black cherry plum aromatics with soft tannins. Very youthful, but with some nice weight on the palate also.

Cabernet and Shiraz continues to be a little harder to make. It's mostly viticultural though. The best lots of Shiraz have deep black color and a smokey & spicy plum character. For Cabernet, I would say that again, the best lots are reminiscent of Australian Coonawarra Cabernets.

What we do is taste and classify each lot. Some go to Reserve, some go to regular bottlings of our Sula Cabernet/Shiraz blend and some get declassified. I'm happy to say that we were able to make or exceed target blend sizes we need for the upcoming sales year.

More on viticulture later. I spent the day in the vineyards today, looking at growth post harvest pruning, where we are building carbohydrate in the vines before Monsoon comes in June.

Time for a slug of beer.

The Magic Of Indian Winegrowing

Countless times I have been asked how it can be possible to grow grapes in such a hot and tropical climate. So here's the deal... and it's pretty unique to India as a tropical region. Our vineyards for Sula Vineyards are outside of Bombay (Mumbai) which lies about 1/3 of the way down the west side of the Indian continent. The latitude is close to 20 degrees; the same as Hawaii and Hong Kong. Truly tropical.

What makes it possible and totally unique for Sula and others in India is that we are up at about 2000 feet, so it's not humid. Well, not terrible so. First of all, the vines never go domant. For that reason, we grow the vines in the Indian winter. That is, after Monsoon which occurs from early June through mid September, the vines are pruned again and that is to two bud spurs. And after Monsoon, it never rains again, or rarely, until the Monsoon season in June of the following year...making the growing season perfectly Mediterranean.

From that point, the months of October and November are still warm, but the December and early January are quite cool at 2000 feet. Not quite frost cool, but cool. Veraison, the softening and first coloring of the grapes occurs in December when it is quite cool.

Harvest occurs for the first whites in late Jan/ early Feb and March is when the reds come in. After all the grapes are picked, the vines have their first pruning to force the vines to shut down. And then the life giving Monsoon comes in June... In the state of Maharashtra, where I do all of my consulting work, it typically comes on June 7th ... my birthday. Isn't that wonderful?

Over The Big Blue

It's late Monday night, really it's Tuesay morning, early. I think this is my 11th trip to India. It always begins late at night. On my first trip over the Pacific to the southern aisian continent of India, I really wasn't sure how many sunrises I would see when you "lose" a day going over the international date line.

In fact, when you leave in the middle of the night, early morn, you don't see any sunrises until you are close to Hong Kong, 12 hours and a day and a half later. It's the ride home from Bombay, leaving at midnight when you see the two sunrises. One between Bombay and Singapore and the next one, later in the trip, the same day mind you, flying over the pacific. It's pretty cool.

I'm excited about my trip to India. I always am. It's so far away, and yet it has become a home away from my Sonoma County home to me.

Sula Vineyards is my main client. Borne and driven by my very fun and hip partner, Raj Samant who found love for wines and the grape when he was going to Stanford and working later for Oracle in Silicone Valley. Just seven short years ago, we we producing our first Sauviignon Blanc. I think we produced somewhere less than a couple thousand cases. More on that crazy expericnece later. And it was wild. Today we are over 100,000 cases.

Got to go. Time to board.

Kerry

On the road, again!

Heading to Nasik, India tomorrow morning. Doing my last minute checks on vineyards around the county. I am the winemaker for my own brand, Palmeri Wines, as well as the consulting winemaker for several other Sonoma County wineries. Dutcher Crossing is one of them and we had a phenomenal turnout for this weekend's Passport to Dry Creek. WOW! It is so gratifiying to hear the responses to the wines we've developed. Anyway, have to run, still need to pick up a book for the looong plane trip. Any suggestions?