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ShareThe best part of wine is how it inspires people. A lot of people keep their distance from wine just to later become devotees of the first Cru. Among such men, I recently met the man behind an upcoming Indian wine brand.
Paul John is a very quite person. He doesn't give away much about his work but the Kumarokam Lake Resort is a story in itself. The resort is definitely among the most hospitable in India. On a recent visit I had the dual benefit of tasting copious amounts of God's own brew (well, if it comes from God's own country, what would you call it?) and also the new vintages of Big Banyan wines.
I am not the biggest fan of Nashik. In fact, I can almost always tell Nashik reds in a blind tasting and I don't mean that in a good way. What I tasted of this house last was very average stuff. This was then when their Ramnagar vineyard in Karnataka was still sprouting vines and the first crops were awaited.
The harvests have come and the new wines, mostly white for now, tell a different tale. Lucio, the Italian winemaker with much flair and experience, has done some honest work in shaping the wines. He is vehement about expressing nature as it is without masking it or trying to alter it.
He shivers at the idea of a wine from India trying to emulate another region of the world. Mind you all this was educed through spicier discussions over a very tasty Malayali meal paired with the wines. He is learning about India well; it isn't for nothing he now sports an Indian name -- Laxman.
Onto the wines, I am happy to give the whites the white chit. I do have concerns about transport and storage and what it would do to these fragile floral wines but that only time can and will tell.
As for the reds, they need work. I think using Nashik grapes is a ruined plan from the start. Lucio insists that we should reset our minds before tasting Indian wines. He says that in tropical conditions it is tough to make wine as made elsewhere. He also elaborates that ages of western winemaking sensibilities cannot be compressed into a few years.
I agree with him but I counter with two points: if Nashik is too hot and too difficult to grow grapes then why bother making wine there? Surely a government's subsidies and protectionist policies are more at play here than other reasons. (Ironically the Big Banyan doesn't benefit from these as it is based out of Goa and Karnataka.) And if winemakers are still 'learning from their mistakes' why should the unsuspecting consumers pay the price for it?
I reserve my comments on the red; at best they are passé. I will wait for the Ramnagar vineyards to throw up some red grapes before I praise or prune the Big Banyan. It took Paul six years to get this former coconut and paddy grove to its verdant 12 acre form.
So I am equally tempted to wish him a rapid rise in the wine sector. Sure the grapes take time but for what I tasted about a year ago, they have definitely managed considerable and positive change. Ramnagar in Karnataka should be a region to watch out for in the future.
As for Nashik, I hereby institute a challenge: please, give me a wine from that region which I can sip without cringing; a wine that may not taste like the great wines of the world but can at least be enjoyable. Or else, please uproot the vines and plant mangoes instead.
