Grover Vineyards (Picture Gallery)

BEC members visited Grover Vineyards on March 24, 2007. We started off at 9 am from Garuda Mall in the morning and hopped on the bus provided to us by Tulleho, the tour operator. Incidentally the word “Tulleho” means “get totally drunk” in hindi.

The drive was 1.5 hours north of Bangalore (40 km) to a place called Dodballapur close to Nandi Hills where the Vineyards were located. The Grover range produced from high-altitude vineyards with help from Michel Rolland, a top French winemaker from Bordeaux, is considered extremely respectable. The vineyards are planted at 2,000 feet above sea level and produce two crops a year. Still white and red wines from Bangalore purple, cabernet, shiraz and Thompson seedless grapes are made under the supervision of Chief Technical Officer from France, Mr. Thibaud. Bangalore has the ideal combination of rich, well drained soil, warm sunny days, cool nights and temperate climate and so was selected over six other places as the most suitable site by the company. Today, Grover Vineyards has over 200 acres under plantation. Unlike other wine makers in India today, Grover Vineyards is the only company which shuns ordinary table grapes, while exclusively using French wine grapes.

BEC members got a very good overview of the history, the manufacturing process, the sales etc from Thibaud who took time off from his busy schedule to spend 2+ hours with us. We then tasted some whites and some reds and got a little “Tullehoed” to say the least. Since buying wine at a vineyard is illegal per Karnataka rules, some members tried to steal some wine bottles and were put in a makeshift jail for 5 whole minutes specially constructed for expat type thieves. Some others tried to grab at any vat, barrel, bottle they could find that had wine in it. Some others were Tullehoed by just the aroma of the wine in the large mixing vats. We then returned to B’lore a little high from the experience.