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?