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| Ranjit Dhuru with the vineyard and guest house in the background |
Waiting for Dhuru at the Mumbai airport that fateful
morning, I glanced at TV18 blasting away the Breaking News. Stock market
bulls had been crushed with the BSE going South 2035 points. The other
headline news was about 38 bus passengers who had died near Nashik in
a crash. The one-hour delay caused by the late departure of Kingfisher
Airlines flight in Delhi due to the airport closure because of Republic
Day rehearsals was a minor irritant, in front of this depressing news.
I was waiting for Dhuru to pick me up to go to Nashik.
What a day of crushes and crashes I had chosen to visit his vineyards
and winery at Dindori, in the 'wine capital', I thought to myself!'
Before I could reflect on the millions I would have lost
(hopefully on paper) during the morning flight of an hour and fifty minutes,
Ranjit Dhuru arrived in his Rs. 55 lakh ( $140,000) beautiful, blue Touareg
SUV from Volkswagen and I felt slightly reassured. Proud of his acquisition,
he did confess to me having almost bought a Tata Safari because of its
performance. He had chanced across the Touareg which was a bit expensive
(about 6 times!) but had stolen his heart and he had bought it a couple
of years ago.
The journey to Nashik takes around 3.5 hours-at least
on paper. The endless city traffic in Mumbai can add an hour or two-or
three, to that time. Ranjit did seem excited about the fact that Laloo
Yadav (our railway minister of Harvard fame) was proposing a TGV style
train to Nashik, which would cut down the travel time to an unbelievable
1.5 hours. Add 2 hours to reach the station from the airport and you would
get a clearer picture of Mumbai traffic.
Our journey was very pleasant with Ranjit sharing his
thoughts about the Sauvignon Blanc crush which might be a few days earlier
than the usual Feb beginning or the middle. He was being disturbed perennially
by phone calls- the non-wine world around him seemed to be more concerned
with the stock market crash, right now.
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| ‘Don’t worry, the crash is temporary’ says Dhuru to an investor in his IT company.
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Ranjit Dhuru is a lawyer by profession and the Chairman
of a well-known public limited and traded IT company, Aftek, which he
founded in 1986 and took to $100 million size, employing over a thousand
employees, the majority being in their working office in Pune. The news
had apparently permeated that his stock had also gone southwards along
with BSE and was making fund managers across the globe who had holdings
in his company rather nervous.
But he was cheerful enough to talk of his passion –
wine and the indigenous production.
Bordeaux Snob
To the un-initiated, Ranjit might come across as a Bordeaux
snob. Right from the name of his import label-Chateau d'Ori to his imported
wines, his personal taste of wines and his wine purchases and collections-
he has been a serious En Primeur buyer his preference for Bordeaux sticks
out like a sore thumb.
He even chose a French winemaker of Greek descent, Anthony
Fakorellis from Bordeaux when he decided to give shape to his passion
and decided to set up a winery and convert land he had bought into vineyards,
four years ago.
He took this time to import and sell 8 labels of wine,
all from Bordeaux left and the right banks including Graves, Pauillac,
St. Emilion and Pomerol. It is no mean achievement that during the last
4 years he carved a niche of about 5000 cases market , especially as he
concentrated on Maharashtra and primarily the Mumbai market.
He got slightly disturbed when I asked him why he had
chosen a typically Bordeaux name for his label and winery. 'What is wrong
in that?' he retorted. 'Aren't we addressing grapes like Sauvignon Blanc
and Cabernet Sauvignon by their French names? Besides, there are so many
wineries in the world who use French names.
The genesis
It is not that Ranjit is blindly in love with Bordeaux
or France. 'During the course of business we had bought an IT company
in Munich and I used to travel a lot to Europe and the US on business
and where I started enjoying wines,' he told me. He also started visiting
several wineries. It really hit him during a visit to Opus One winery
in Napa valley when the winemaker proudly told him that Mondavi had a
tie up with Rothschild in Bordeaux to make this excellent wine.
He reasoned, if even Mondavi would go thousands of miles
to Bordeaux to make a quality wine, why not go to the basic source. He
started frequenting it and went to several tastings for En Primeur too.
In the process, he collected wines like Angelus, d'Yquem, Cheval Blanc,
Pontet Canet, Domaine de Chevalier.
During his visits, he had met a French negociant, Ivan
Cruse, who helped him along and rest is history.
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