Indian wine country booming as award-winning vineyards draw tourists and domestic fans

At Nashik International Airport, there are so many posters advertising vineyards and wine tastings, you could be forgiven for thinking you have landed in California’s wine country rather than India’s west, 160km (100 miles) north of Mumbai. Yet in the past two decades, Indian wine production has 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 at the Global Wine Masters in May 2024, the highest honour an Indian bottling has received at that annual competition. A viognier from Grover Zampa, which has vineyards in Nashik, and Bengaluru in India’s south, was named best of show at January’s Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America competition. Beyond winning awards, 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. “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. 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 2024. “The word ‘authentic’ is overused, but that is what people want, whether they completely understand it or not,” she says. “Nashik, right now, feels quite authentic.” The highway that leads from Mumbai to the vineyards is modern, but sections of it involve winding dirt roads and wayward cows. And while wine is central to the experience, it is hardly the full extent of what to do there. This is a place to sample brut rosé and cabernet shiraz and then take a sunset boat ride on the reservoir of Gangapur Dam, one of Asia’s largest. The region is also home to Trimbakeshwar, a revered and architecturally significant shrine to Shiva that dates to 1755 and contains a special three-faced representation of the Hindu god, and the 2,000-year-old Pandav Leni Caves, once frequented by Buddhist monks. Sula Vineyards has put Nashik on the map for international wine lovers. Founded in 1999 by Rajeev Samant, a former engineer for American computer technology company Oracle who returned home after quitting his Silicon Valley job, it produces more than 50 per cent of the wine consumed in India. Sula’s production is encyclopedic: it makes more than 70 labels, from a pineapple-y sparkling rosé to an oaky chardonnay to a tannin-thick cabernet sauvignon that could pass for something out of Napa. Once consumers start understanding quality, the winemakers here will be forced to level up Sanket Gawand, owner of Indian winery Vallonné Sula’s Nashik tasting room – billed as India’s first when it opened in 2005 – features a bar that can easily accommodate 100, a gift shop filled with kitschy T-shirts and a theatre that plays a short movie about Sula’s rise. Since 2010 it has also operated a vineyard resort, The Source, which looks like a cross between a Spanish hacienda and a Tuscan villa – albeit with an intricately painted elephant sculpture in the lobby. “My dad was born in Nashik,” Samant says of his connection to the land. While attending Stanford University in the 1980s, he visited Napa Valley. A decade later, his father showed him a parcel of land he was thinking of selling. “It reminded me of California,” Samant says of the area’s verdant rolling hills and dirt roads. “I said, ‘I don’t think you should sell this. I‘m going to try to do something here.’” Now more than 350,000 visitors pass through the tasting room each year – as of April, more than 331,774 have come through in 2025 alone. “The notable spike reflects the growing popularity of wine tourism in India,” says Sula representative Kinjal Mehta, as well as the fact that the cooler months are the most popular time to visit Nashik. While most visitors are domestic, Sula says the share of international visitors is growing. Sula is not the only game in town. About a half-hour drive from The Source is Vallonné, a humble winery producing some of the best wines in the region, owned and operated by Sanket Gawand. A Nashik native, Gawand cut his teeth at wineries in Bordeaux, France, and Bologna, Italy, before opening his own outfit., He also serves as Vallonné’s winemaker and runs its tastings, which take place in the cellar amid stainless steel tanks. He manages a team of 10 that harvests nine lakefront vineyards by hand. The four rooms at Vallonné’s upstairs inn – quaintly furnished with vineyard views and priced at about US$70 per night – are consistently booked, and its restaurant serves what might be the best food in the region. The all-day menu, which is also available to walk-in guests, includes succulent lamb kebabs and toothsome Hakka noodles made all the better with a glass of Vallonné’s crisp chenin blanc. Autumn and winter are prime time for the region, and the success of the past season signals that planning for next year will be more essential than ever. Since 2008 Sulafest, a wine and music festival akin to Coachella, has brought about 20,000 visitors to Nashik every February. Hotels drive up their rates; locals sell yard space to day trippers in need of parking. It is the marquee event for Sula Vineyards and Nashik as a whole. “There is potential for India to produce far, far better wines,” says Gawand, who believes that he and his peers are just getting started. “Many Indians are travelling abroad,” tasting quality wines and returning home with an elevated thirst. “Once consumers start understanding quality, the winemakers here will be forced to level up.”

Indian wine country booming as award-winning vineyards draw tourists and domestic fans

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Near Mumbai, Nashik’s award-winning vineyards and holy sites draw visitors after something beyond the Taj Mahal as Indian wine tourism booms

Near Mumbai, Nashik’s award-winning vineyards and holy sites draw visitors after something beyond the Taj Mahal as Indian wine tourism booms