Silver Streak 25 Years Of Grover Vineyards

Ruma Singh traces the history of Grover Vineyards, currently marking 25 memorable years of winemaking in a journey closely linked to the Indian wine industry’s own history

The Grovers are India’s only wine dynasty, with the third generation on board, and the Grover wine story is both colourful and dramatic.

In the beginning

During his frequent visits to Paris for work in the 1960s and 70s, businessman Kanwal Grover fell in love with French wine and gastronomy. From those trips came the seed of what is today one of India’s largest and most influential wine producers, Grover Zampa Vineyards. With 500 acres of vineyards in the states of Karnataka and Maharashtra, both owned and long-leased, Grover Zampa sells 2.6 million bottles of wine, including 14 brands and 38 wine labels. For many wine lovers like myself who have frequented Grover Vineyards over the years and who often drink its wines, watching the growth arc of the company has been spectacular.

Back then, whisky-drinking India knew little and cared less about wine. But Kanwal Grover was set on realizing his dream. So the search for a wine consultant began. Grover, having read an article on Georges Vesselle (“The Pope of Champagne”) tracked down Champagne Mumm’s technical director to his home in Bouzy. The language barrier notwithstanding, a bond was struck between the two over bottles of vintage Bouzy red.

Kanwal Grover’s son Kapil, a chartered accountant and MBA, soon found himself drawn into his father’s wine dream, a world apart from the family business of high tech defence equipment. Their beginning, he says, “was quite frightening. We didn’t know if grapes grew on bushes or creepers! When Vesselle and his wife visited India, we made a flurry of visits to Pune and Narayangaon to meet experts who could explain something about Indian grapes and soil.” The visit unspooled like a Bollywood comedy of errors. But by the end of it, Vesselle had learned much and agreed to come on board.