Wine grapes, generally speaking, grow in two bands around the Earth between 30 and 50 degrees North or South of the equator. Anywhere outside of these bands is either too hot or too cold. At least, that's the common wisdom. It is certainly mostly true, but our voyage of discovery this week leads us to challenge that wisdom.
Nasik is not a grape variety, but a city in the Indian state of Maharashtra and it lies a mere 20 degrees North of the equator and that puts it below the Tropic of Cancer. So no grapes here, M'Lud. How then is it that here we have:
Week N (2014) Jewel of Nasik Sauvignon Blanc. M&S £7.00
It seems that Nasik (or Nashik, as it can also be spelled), the 'wine capital of India' has 74 wineries of which 36 are said to be 'world class' (the criteria are not specified). It is a city where, aside from the obvious hi-tech industries, fruit and veg make up a good portion of the ctiy's economy, so the climate must be amenable.
It is not a region you would call cool climate, with an average monthly low temperature if 17 degrees and an average monthly high of 30, but with the monsoon there is no shortage of rainfall at 690mm which is well over the required minimum. In fact it is rather too much at that time of year and harvest must be delayed until January to avoid the crop being spolied and bloated.
M&S have teamed up with Sula Vineyards, who started growing wine grapes (table grapes had been grown for many years) in the 1990s after a Silicon Valley engineer, Rajeev Samant, realised that the climate of his family estate had much in common with parts of Spain, Australia and California, to produce three wines aimed at the UK market. The red is a Tempranillo, the Rose a Zinfandel and this white is Sauvignon Blanc. Sula also produce several other varieties in total volumes well into the millions of litres from three sites totalling 1,800 acres.Who knew?
This wine is very pale and almost colourless, with some pale lemon yellow notes. It has very obvious Sauvignon Blanc flavours of gooseberry / elderflower (according to your preference) but is very simple. It has good acidity that went rather well with the salmon and prawn curry.
It won't replace any number of New Zealand SBs which are usually available for the same price, but it was interesting to try an Indian wine with sufficiently pleasing, if unspectacular results, that I expect the other two varieties in the range will get their turn in due course.
Just to throw in a vaguely interesting and almost associated fact, according to the Hindu epic legend of Lord Rama, the seventh avatar of Vishnu, Nasik got its name from an episode in which his brother cut off a woman's nose. I don't know why he did, but in Sanskrit the word for nose is 'Nasika' and it was picked because of that.
Nasik is not a grape variety, but a city in the Indian state of Maharashtra and it lies a mere 20 degrees North of the equator and that puts it below the Tropic of Cancer. So no grapes here, M'Lud. How then is it that here we have:
It seems that Nasik (or Nashik, as it can also be spelled), the 'wine capital of India' has 74 wineries of which 36 are said to be 'world class' (the criteria are not specified). It is a city where, aside from the obvious hi-tech industries, fruit and veg make up a good portion of the ctiy's economy, so the climate must be amenable.
It is not a region you would call cool climate, with an average monthly low temperature if 17 degrees and an average monthly high of 30, but with the monsoon there is no shortage of rainfall at 690mm which is well over the required minimum. In fact it is rather too much at that time of year and harvest must be delayed until January to avoid the crop being spolied and bloated.
M&S have teamed up with Sula Vineyards, who started growing wine grapes (table grapes had been grown for many years) in the 1990s after a Silicon Valley engineer, Rajeev Samant, realised that the climate of his family estate had much in common with parts of Spain, Australia and California, to produce three wines aimed at the UK market. The red is a Tempranillo, the Rose a Zinfandel and this white is Sauvignon Blanc. Sula also produce several other varieties in total volumes well into the millions of litres from three sites totalling 1,800 acres.Who knew?
This wine is very pale and almost colourless, with some pale lemon yellow notes. It has very obvious Sauvignon Blanc flavours of gooseberry / elderflower (according to your preference) but is very simple. It has good acidity that went rather well with the salmon and prawn curry.
It won't replace any number of New Zealand SBs which are usually available for the same price, but it was interesting to try an Indian wine with sufficiently pleasing, if unspectacular results, that I expect the other two varieties in the range will get their turn in due course.
Just to throw in a vaguely interesting and almost associated fact, according to the Hindu epic legend of Lord Rama, the seventh avatar of Vishnu, Nasik got its name from an episode in which his brother cut off a woman's nose. I don't know why he did, but in Sanskrit the word for nose is 'Nasika' and it was picked because of that.
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