Sula Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc 2025
£10.25
The wine
Sauvignon Blanc in India depends entirely on altitude and picking date. At 600 to 900 metres on the Deccan plateau the nights are cool enough to hold the grape's aromatics, and picking early keeps the acidity taut. Expect gooseberry, citrus and a distinctly herbal, grassy cut rather than tropical weight.
Sula planted the first commercial Sauvignon Blanc in India in the late 1990s, which was regarded at the time as an eccentric thing to attempt. The dry ripening season after the monsoon clears in September is what makes it possible, and the wine is fermented cool in stainless steel with no oak.
The producer
Sula Vineyards
View all Sula Vineyards winesSula Vineyards was founded in 1999 by Rajeev Samant, who left a career in Silicon Valley and returned to his family's land at Nashik in Maharashtra to plant grapes where his father had grown mangoes. It is now by some distance India's largest wine producer.
India was not an obvious place to try. The country has a long history of viticulture but almost none of winemaking, and the modern industry dates only from the 1980s. Nashik works because of altitude: the vineyards sit at 600 to 900 metres on the Deccan plateau, high enough for cool nights despite the latitude, and the monsoon arrives in June and clears by September, leaving a dry ripening season. Vines are pruned twice a year, once to establish the canopy and once for fruit, which is a rhythm found in few other wine regions.
Sula built the Indian wine market as much as it supplied it, opening the country's first tasting room and running a music festival at the winery that draws tens of thousands. The Dindori Reserve wines are the senior range.
