VINE TO VINO

Calling all wine lovers to explore India's wine trails and vineries

- SMITA TRIPATHI

MUMBAI-BASED RAPPER DIVINE, singer Kabeer Kathpalia aka OAFF, Ritviz, When Chai Met Toast—this was not the line-up of a music concert in Delhi or Mumbai, but of Nasik’s SulaFest. The 14th edition of the wine and music festival at Sula Vineyards made a splash this February, coming back after a five-year break.

Several thousand people—primarily from Nasik, Gujarat, Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore—bought tickets worth 3,000 each to enjoy a weekend of great food, wine and music, reaffirming Rajeev Samant’s faith in India’s wine tourism. Samant, the CEO and founder of Sula Vineyards who is celebrating 25 years of pioneering India’s wine industry, always believed that tourism was going to be an extension of vinification.

“I went to a university in California, and I saw what they had created in Napa Valley, which is by far the global pioneer in wine tourism. Every weekend, there is traffic leading to Napa. It’s a billion-dollar wine tourism economy,” says Samant.

Not just Napa, but wine tourism, from Tuscany to Bordeaux in Europe and from Yarra Valley in Australia to Hawke’s Bay in New Zealand, is seeing significant expansion with forecasts predicting growth from nearly $96 billion in 2024 to around $333 billion in 2034, a CAGR of 13.2%, per a report by market research Future Market Insights.

Wine tourism in India, though nascent, is growing. At Sula, nearly 20% of the 600 crore revenue comes from wine tourism. Sula’s latest Q3 reports show a year-on-year increase of 11.6% in wine tourism. umbai-based rapper DIVINE, singer Kabeer Kathpalia aka OAFF, Ritviz, When Chai Met Toast—this was not the line-up of a music concert in Delhi or Mumbai, but of Nasik’s SulaFest. The 14th edition of the wine and music festival at Sula Vineyards made a splash this February, coming back after a five-year break.