I turned one year older last weekend. Birthdays have lost
its charm since I turned 25. Maybe it’s the mid-20s crisis (if there’s such a
thing), but I so desperately did not want the birthday to come, I slept before
midnight, only to be shaken, woken and made to cut the birthday cake.
Thankfully, my fiancé is a lazy man as he is smart and he put only a single
candle on the cake. Saved himself.
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| My B'day gift |
He is also a good “gifter”; he knows I don’t like surprise
gifts (learnt the hard way) and I’d rather tell what I want than let someone
gift me anything hideous that fills my limited apartment space.
So this time when he asked what I wanted as a birthday gift, I quipped “The Grover Vineyard Tour!” without a moment’s
hesitation. (I had been doing my gift-research, you see)
I had wanted to visit the Grover Vineyard since I heard of
it. I read the reviews and checked the photos. A blogger said that the best
season was from Oct-March, so then, since March is my birthday month, let the
Grover Vineyard Tour be my birthday gift.
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| Can't miss this |
So, I wrote to Grover Vineyard and they were very prompt in
replying or assisting me with my dozen queries. We booked the cab and on my
birthday morning, we left for the Vineyards at around 9:15am.
The Vineyards are situated at Doddabalapur and it took
around 90mins to reach the place. The directions are fairly easy and if you
can’t locate, the girl at Grover Vineyards will talk to your driver in Kannada
and assist you. J
The tour starts at 10:30am and we reached 15-20 mins late; by
that time, the group had already moved to the plantation. We went there
straightaway. In my head, I imagined the ferocious sun beating on us, sweat
dripping as we look across an arid land with few twines for vines. (I read a
review which sounded depressing; I bet the blogger went in a really bad season).
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| Line-by-line |
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| Sauvignon grapes |
For us, it was not bad at all. Vines grown in strict
military-discipline fashion, rows and rows of them, greeted us. The grapes were
very inviting; though we were told by our guide, Jay, to not pluck and eat as
they get oxidized. He provided the tour group (a group of 20 it must have been)
a brief history of Grover Vineyards which sounded familiar as I had gone
through their website before! Then he showed us the Sauvignon grapes and the
Shiraz grapes. After which, we were left to wander through the plantation and
the tour group (mostly, a flutter of girls) started clicking photos of
themselves twirling around the vines. That must have lasted a good 30minutes.
After the plantation tour, the guide took us to the processing unit.
Here, in the processing unit, photography was not allowed;
but blimey, there’s no way a good photo would come out of huge stainless steel
machines!
The guide explained how the grapes arrive (in crates… :/…how
interesting!), are manually selected, de-stemmed, pressurized and crushed. He
pointed out to various steel giants.
Then, we were taken to the fermentation room which gave out
such a pungent smell of grapes that it reminded me of that time when I had left
grapes in my fridge for a month (I had went on a holiday) and returned to find
pungent fumes attack me. It was nauseous. But you get used to it in a minute or
two. After talking a great deal of how the steel giants store the grapes for
how long at what temperature, he took us to see the bottling of the wine
bottles, and then he said “Please go
downstairs to the sampling room”… and… I shook to life!
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| If we could only drink from those! |
The sampling room was more of an aesthetically designed
store room. It had tons of wooden barrels wherein wine was stored. Dates were marked
on the outside of the barrels. How I wished I could carry one of those home!
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| Admiring Art |
We started off with Viogner, then Sauvignon Blanc, Shiraz Rose, Cabernet Shiraz and lastly, La Reserve.
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| Grover Wines |
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| Introducing Shiraz Rose, prettiest looking wine |
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| The wine expert talks |
Don’t ask me which wine is what and
what to pair what with. The guide bombarded us all these info but you can
hardly expect me to concentrate on his talking when I was busy with my
drinking. The guide was quick and the bottles were sampled (and emptied) quite
swiftly. I have never tasted wine so quick and by the fourth glass, I was on
the dumb-smile phase of happy drinking. I liked. I liked. This was the best
part of the tour.
The second best being the vineyard plantation, and the third
being the lunch.
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| Lunching on the Lawn |
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| Chiming away |
By 2pm, we were done with our part of the lazy lunch. Others were still enjoying themselves, but we decided to move on (I had a party
to throw at home… and as a host, I couldn’t be late).
On the drive home, we both slept oh-so-nicely! Grover Wines
sure knew how to make a good meal.
I am so happy we discovered this place. Even a non-wine
drinker like my fiancé loved the tour. I guess instead of taking friends to
lookalike Bangalore malls when they come to town, we should take them to these
off-beat but upcoming places.
And yes, thank you Neel for the lovely birthday present.
(For more info, you can visit their website, http://grovervineyards.in/)
