What was she doing in Villány?

In the beginning of September, a guest of ours arrived from India, Dr. Yashoda Devi. She is a practicing doctor in India, as well as a wine consultant, judge, and brand ambassador for wine. Last year, she spent the harvest in Bordeaux at Château Malartic Lagravière winery and this year, she has come to visit us at Malatinszky Kúria, learning all the ins and outs of the winery. And why Villány, you ask? The answer it quite simple: our Cabernet Franc. …

You see, though the Cabernet Franc is a popular Bordeaux variety, only in very few places is it possible to make a wine that is 100% Cabernet Franc. Here in Villány, however, this variety has found a great home and we are able to produce a pure varietal wine like nowhere else. But what’s the situation in India? "Thanks" to globalization, the world is becoming less diversified and as Europeans have come to be interested in exotic eastern cultures, so has India become attracted to the splendor, freedom, and the “anything’s possible” attitude of the West. This has made India is one of the biggest untapped wine markets out there today, surpassing China in their need for both quantity and quality. That makes Yashoda a very welcome guest indeed as the possibility of breaking into the Indian market presents a huge opportunity for any winery because once they start drinking your wines, you can then really begin to produce!
And produce they do in India. Though wine making in India is still in its infant stages, large quantities of wine are being made to meet the surprisingly large demand. Yashoda lives in Bangalor, which is interesting from a viticultural standpoint on many levels. It is a well-known fact that most vines grow at between 30 and 50 degrees latitude in the Northern and Southern hemisphere. In the Northern hemisphere, harvest lasts from August to November while in the Southern hemisphere, the harvest begins in February and lasts till May. Bangalor lies at 10 degrees latitude in the north where harvest begins in April. Yes, global warming is pushing the borders of wine making further north and wineries in tropcial regions are also experiencing a surge. The winery where Yashoda works produces more than five million bottles a year and, due to a high import tax on wines from foreign wineries, Indian wineries are being developed at a fast rate. Today, there are more than forty wineries in the state of Maharastra of which about half are found in the Nashik wine region where its low latitudinal position is balanced out by its height above sea level. There too they concentrate on the more popular varieties like Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot.