Rajeev Samant, founder & CEO, Sula Vineyards
A corporate job in Silicon Valley didn’t quite feel right. So he headed back to India. When his family was trying to sell-off some ancestral land in Nashik, Rajeev Samant decided to put the land to good use. After growing mangoes and other fruits, the regular agricultural route didn’t quite seem the way to go either. Growing grapes in the region always held promise and soon opened up the possibility of making wine. Since then, the story of Samant and Sula Vineyards has grown and matured like a full-bodied wine. It also prompted Indians look at wine like they never did before.
Lucky but unhappy
Rajeev Samant had always considered himself privileged. Born and raised in Mumbai with his schooling and higher education from premier institutions here and abroad, he found himself working for Oracle in California. The trappings of corporate life were not something he could hold on to for long. At a crossroads in his personal and professional life, he made the move back to India in 1993 hoping to find his calling.
When his dad told him he could do what he liked with their 20-acre plot of land in Nashik that he was about to be sold, it appealed to the rustic in Samant. He started growing mangoes on the farm and then tried his luck with roses, teakwood and then table grapes. In a couple of years, he realised that agriculture in India was probably not for him. This experience, however, gave him the chance to understand the local area and people. This would serve him well later.
Grapes of worth
Through a Californian connection who heard about him planting grapes, it struck Samant that he could actually start making wine. Nashik was renowned for its quality grapes. But Samant had no wine-making knowledge or experience. In fact, like most Indians, he wasn’t even much of a wine drinker. But the seed was planted in his mind. What followed was his labour of love, which saw him going back to California, checking in with his network at Stanford, heading to Napa Valley and connecting with Kerry Damskey, an American wine consultant. Samant had already presented local soil and climate data to professors at University of California at Davis and after receiving their suggestions, he set up Sula Vineyards in 1999 with Damskey as business partner. It was Nashik’s first winery and the first grapes they planted were French Sauvignon Blanc and Californian Chenin Blanc. Since then Sula has introduced many more varietals like Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Zinfandel, Merlot, Viognier and Riesling. Samant boasts of holding 60% market share in India and selling over 7 million bottles in 2013. Even without independently verifying these figures, it is not hard to believe Sula is the country’s top wine brand. The sheer visibility of their offerings in retail stores, restaurants and hotel wine lists reflects a strong presence.
Crafting the wine experience
Apart from winning awards and being regularly featured in international media, Samant and Sula conduct wine tours and organise wine-tasting sessions at leading hotels, restaurants and at their own 2,000 sq. feet tasting room at the Nashik winery. Sula also runs a 30-room vineyard resort and organises the annual Sulafest, a wine, food and culture event. Their import arm offers international wines and spirits to the Indian market.
Samant’s understanding of the market and his distribution and marketing strategy have been key in establishing Sula as India’s premier wine. The Indian wine market is at a nascent stage and Indians are still developing their taste for wine. But whenever someone tastes wine for the first time, chances are they sample a Sula. The wine with the shining sun on the bottle, named after its founder-CEO’s mother, Sulabha Samant.
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