The Grape Escapade - Château Indage, Part 1

“Bohu din dhore, bohu krosh dure, bohu byay kori, bohu desh ghure,
Dekhite giyachhi parbotmala, dekhite giyachhi sindhu,
Dekha hoy nai chokkhu meliya,Ghar hote shudhu dui pa feliya,
Ekti dhaner shisher upore ekti shishir bindu"

(Trans: I traveled miles, for many a year, I spent a lot in lands afar,
I’ve gone to see the mountains, the oceans I’ve been to view.
But I haven’t seen with these eyes, just two steps from my home lies
On a sheaf of paddy grain, a glistening drop of dew)

I couldn’t help myself from quoting this beautiful Tagore poem to start off the blog. These lines have intrigued me for years. Isn’t it very true that we happen to miss out all the small wonderful things that lie right in front of our eyes only to travel across places in search of finding the big and magnificent? Be it a person or a place; the general belief is that the Western world has the crème de la crème of everything. But somehow I always feel that the bucolic charm of our country is unparallel to its Western counterparts. Manicured stuff never appeals to people who love unbridled beauty.

I believe I am a born traveler. You will never find me saying no to any travel plans, unless of course they involve only city sightseeing. Concrete is devoid of any green, and I thrive on green and nothing else. Green means nature and nature means liberation of the tired soul.

I was fortunate enough to get a life partner who is as much in love with nature and travelling as I am. Being the busy professionals that we are, it’s a luxury for us to find time and hit the road for a sojourn. The Valentines week gave us a perfect excuse to plan an impromptu weekend getaway. Since it was not preplanned it had to be a place which could be reached within a couple of hours and yet would be worth the travel and meet our basic requirement of being close to nature; not to mention which had easy on the pocket as well.

I had the perfect place to suite all these paraphernalia, only issue was to get Ashish (my hubby) to get to agree with the choice of location. This was the place I had always wanted to visit – a winery. Somehow the entire winemaking process and everything to do with wine, sounds so exquisite and tantalizing that the urge to be able to visit such a place grew with passing years. It was this rampant urge (pun intended) that made me search for a winery close to Pune, which might be even unheard by the localites of this place. Narayangaon seemed to be the perfect answer to my dream realization. Reviews confirmed that it met all our prerequisites so Ashish gave the nod without any fuss. We planned to start off by 7 am next morning. Early start would make a pleasant drive through the Ghats.

It was morning and the highly revolting alarm tone on Ashish’s cell woke us up sharp at 6. We both looked at each other with half an open eye each and decided we could push the starting time by half an hour to catch on to the ever elusive sleep for a few more minutes. And you guessed it right, those minutes stretched into an hour unknowingly and we found ourselves scurrying around the house at 8:45 trying to stuff in the last bit of those itty bitty things into our backpacks. By 9:30 we had reached Wakrewadi, which suggested we could still make it on time for the 11 O clock Wine Tour (Google Maps showed it was a 1 hr 25 mins drive). A quick breakfast of Medu-vada sambhar and steaming chai and we were on the scenic Pune- Nashik Highway (NH 50).

A couple of weeks ago we had driven to Mulshi and the drive was a total disappointment - barren fields, uneven potholed roads and scorching heat had made it a nightmare. Hence I was a bit skeptical in the beginning about this road trip as well, more because this was a longer drive. But the Pune-Nashik highway turned out to be au contraire. Zero potholes and stretches of straights and occasional bold curves make it an enjoyable experience. The drive was very scenic even in the last leg of winter; one can easily imagine how heavenly it would look during the fabled monsoons. You would be accompanied by the golden-green rolling plains unfolding before you in varied landscapes, hay fields stretching out leisurely, carpet of bright marigolds and mustard flowers, small brooks by the side of sleepy villages, an occasional “tapri” for the weary travelers to have a refreshing cuppa chai coupled with bun maska or vada pav and of course the ubiquitous vineyards luring you to surrender yourself to an intoxicating world – the Napa Valley of India.

Pune Nashik Highway (NH50)

The traffic was not that bad except the annoying six-seaters which never seem to abide by any traffic rules. We reached Rajgurunagar at exactly 11 am. Ashish needed to get the bike mirrors fixed hence we took a break of 20 minutes over there. The only other wine tour of the day was at 1 pm so we made quick mental calculation of distance remaining and speed required to reach there by that time. The best part of the route was that once you are on the Pune Nashik highway it’s a straight drive onto the winery, never for once also you need to take a diversion. So you don’t need to exercise your brain cells at all in keeping track of the route map. Just sit back and warm up to the inviting landscape.

In the Vineyard

To be contd...

- Barnali