THE Tata Sierra that swept majestically out of Bangalore on the 40-km drive to Dodballapur, had to crawl the last hundred metres over rust-red soil and difficult terrain, as we bounced and lurched towards the distant hump of Nandi Hills. This is Cabernet Sauvignon country, where Kanwal Grover, a tall, courtly septuagenarian, has 100 acres of vineyards fluttering with canopies of Clairette and other varieties of French vines. From the grapes he harvests here, Grover enterprisingly makes a million bottles a year of red, white and rose wines that the Indian market finds good enough to put alongside European imports in five-star hotels and bars.
We drove past buffaloes and goats grazing by mud-walled huts, past eucalyptus trees standing proudly in the sun, over a rise of stubbly wheat fields, and there was Grover�s dream. A march of granite pillars and wire-lacing draped and wound with the leaves and last fruit of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. �This is known as the Italian pergola style,� said Kanwal Grover from the front seat of the Sierra. He was pointing to the neat rows of trellised dangling grapevines on the flat scrubby Deccan plains.
Sitting behind with me was Kapil Grover, his son, a director of Grover Vineyards, and Kapil�s attention I noticed was sourly on the eucalyptus trees. Later he would tell me that the eucalyptus trees were bad for them. �They drain all the land�s water and if their leaves settle on the vine, you get an eucalyptus taste to the wine. Not what we�re looking for. In fact, we�re trying to persuade the local farmers to get rid of the trees.�
The Sierra jerked to a halt outside the Grovers�s distinctly un-chateau-like premises, and the vineyard staff came out to meet us. Leading them was a Frenchman with rugged, Belmondo-like looks. �This is Bruno Yvon, the French palate behind our wines,� Kanwal Grover introduced the young oenologist to me. �He patrols the vineyards for us, inspects the stainless steel tanks
and regularly swishes the wines around a glass and then in his mouth!�
Bruno is not Grover Vineyard�s only French connection. There is also Michel Rolland, who ranks among the top oenologists of the world, and who has helped a number of wineries from Chile to California to bring out their best.
In the early 1980s, when Kanwal Grover threw himself into wine-making with a quixotic and perfectionist passion, there was also George Vessels, a wine-maker from Bouzy district in France and former director of Champagne Mumms. When he introduced the first of their wines to the local market in 1992, I remember Kanwal Grover presenting George Vessels to the media as the Pope of Champagne.
Now he chuckled at the memory and explained the conviction with which he set out to make wines in India. In the late 1940s, seeking machine tool import orders for his company, Hindustan Export & Import Corporation, Kanwal Grover went to Continental Europe. Here, he said, while his business and palate flourished, he found there was a definite distaste among his European business associates for visiting India. �India was a punishment posting for the European, I saw Frenchmen suffer for the sake of wine and cheese. And I thought, why cannot we make wines like theirs in India!�
The seed for Grover Vineyards was sown, but it took until the Eighties to sprout. Kanwal Grover met George Vessels in 1979, and over the next few years shipped
bags of dirt from different parts of India along with statistics on rainfall and temperature to his wine-makers in Bouzy for analysis. They conducted a series of reconnaissances, soil tests and experimental plantings ensued, and in 1983, Grover and Vessels selected 35 varieties of vines to see how they would grow in India.
Together they set up a plot outside Bangalore, and between 1983 and 1988, the grape juice of every harvest from here was sent to Vessels�s laboratory in Epernay for quality testing and wine-making. By 1989, Vessels had narrowed down the samples to nine varieties of vines, and they planted these commercially on 40 acres of land at the foot of Nandi Hills. The first harvest was in 1991, and Grover Vineyards introduced their first three wines the next year: Cabernet Sauvignon Red, Blanc de Blancs de Clairette White, and Rose Dry .
The farming of the vines on this plot proved relatively easy. The benign temperature and modest monsoon of the Deccan plateau produced a Californian climate and two good harvests a year. And the light soils, a good drainage. The Grovers then built a small winery with equipment from France, including a dozen chilled tanks, each with 13,000-litre capacity, crushers and bottling machines.
Later, they added a cellar for barrels. And in due time, produced two more wines, a Demi-Sec Rose and La Reserve, Grover Vineyards� first aged wine. Kapil Grover said, �La Reserve is crafted in the best wine-making tradition of Bordeaux, under the supervision of Michel Rolland, and from the finest selection of our oldest Cabernet Sauvignon vines.� His father added, �We used to make very tolerable wines, now we have moved towards elegance.�
Now that they have developed good Indian wines, the bigger challenge for Kanwal Grover and his son remains to develop the Indian wine-drinker. �I am a whisky drinker,� admitted Pop Grover, �but at the table, I must have a good wine. I think the finest achievement in palate satisfaction is the perfect marriage of food and wine. Unfortunately, in India, we have yet to clear this hurdle. At dinner parties, we drink ourselves silly with whisky and wine on an empty stomach before dinner.
Then when we go to the table... it�s back to drinking water again! Wine is meant to be carried to the table to accompany food. It offers the promise of a relaxed and intimate evening. Something has to be done to bring back the culture of sit-down dinners. Wine is for people who want to live abundantly, and not recklessly.�
He is all for mixing the right food with the right win
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