INDIA'S 'NAPA VALLEY'

A toast to the world's newest wine route

- SHEILA YASMIN MARIKAR

AT NASHIK International Airport, there are so many posters advertising vineyards and wine tastings, you could be forgiven for thinking you've landed in Cape Town rather than in India's west, 160km north of Mumbai.

Yet in the past two decades, Indian wine production has, in fact, become a thing, and Nashik is its epicentre.

The greater wine industry is taking notice: Sula Vineyards, India's leading winemaker, won the gold medal for cabernet sauvignon from the Global Wine Masters last May, the highest honour an Indian bottling has received at that annual competition. A viognier from Grover Zampa, which has vineyards in Nashik as well as Bangalore, in India's south, was named best of show at January's Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America competition.

Nashik is fuelling a thirst for wine in a country where alcohol consumption is restrained and mostly limited to whisky. Its recent successes are not only resonating with locals but also generating renewed interest in international travel to India and bringing a new audience to the region.

Ten years after Chandon, part of the LVMH-owned Moët Hennessy portfolio, opened its first winery in Nashik, the brand's president, Arnaud de Saignes, touts the region's "potential to produce premium grape varieties" and calls India a "dynamic market," "with a growing appreciation for high-quality wines."

"The concept of wine in India doesn't make sense, initially," says Lisa Alam Shah, the director of Micato Safaris India, a luxury tour operator that's arranged subcontinental adventures for the likes of Hillary Clinton and the Ambani family. Part of that, she says, is because India heavily taxes alcoholic beverages, which makes it difficult for residents to access quality wines and spirits made abroad. But her clients are increasingly "looking for something new beyond the Taj Mahal and the palaces of Rajasthan." So Shah has helped develop Micato's new tour to Nashik, on offer since last year.