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.