Sula celebrates 15th anniversary with launch of Brut Tropicale

The grand old daddy of the Indian wine scene – Sula celebrated its 15^th anniversary with panache past Sunday. The event organized at the rooftop bar Asilo at St. Regis Mumbai saw the who’s who from the Mumbai social scene lining up at the do in their Sunday bests.

Apart from pouring some of the better wines from the Sula stables, the event also saw the launch of their newest sparkling made out of Pinot Noir grapes called Brut Tropicale. The event was well curated and before the launch, Rajeev Samanth CEO of Sula vineyards, gave a warm welcome to all the guests and regaled the crowd with the secret behind the name Sula.

The company, named after Rajeev’s mom, had both his parents in attendance. He asked both of them to join the dais with him and also went on to call his principal from school who he credited to be one of his first mentors. The trio went ahead to do the ceremonial launch of the bubbly. The montage was beautifully done and the human touch by thanking his parents and teacher shone a very humane light on the man behind the brand.

Talking of the sparkling, Pinot Noir is quite an unusual grape for India to be made into a sparkling. Made with the traditional champagne method, I found the sparkling to be very light and crisp on the taste, very fruity on the palate. This would certainly go very well with the Indian dishes and Sula seems to have a winner in his hand to compete with the latest breed of sparkling coming out of the stables of its rivals in India.

No stones were left unturned in pouring the wines and other spirits during the events and I could hardly see any empty glass around the same. The food spread saw a decent spread of continental fares from the Asilo kitchen but the real hero of the evening was eventually, their sparkling Brut Tropicale which I am sure to check out again soon.