Sula's Green Fingers

Written by Anna da Costa / 26 August 2010 / Read Anna da Costa's latest blog entries.

Viticulture is growing at a rate of knots in India, and the country's largest winery is leading by environmental example

Nestling just 200km from the bustling metropolis of Mumbai lies Nasik, an area of natural beauty, rich spiritual heritage and home to one of India's newest and burgeoning industries: wine.

As you look towards the sweeping horizon, across undulating hills and sloping valleys, it is an increasingly familiar sight to see straight rows of leafy grape vines stretching far into the distance.

Sula, founded in 1999, now produces 20 different wine varieties from the region, including red, white, rosé and, most recently, port. Not only is it the largest winery in Nasik, but also, as of last year, the largest winery in India, distributing wine across the country and to a rapidly expanding international clientele.

Although only accounting for a small percentage of agriculture in India, the wine industry here is growing at a rate of 25-30 per cent a year (globally, grape-growing accounts for around 4.9 per cent of arable and permanent croplands).

Organic, biodynamic and 'sustainably produced' wines have been popping up with increasing frequency around the world. As a nascent Indian industry, can these principles be adopted early on?

Rajeev Samant, founder and CEO of Sula, believes so. 'Sustainability for its own sake is very desirable, and it has to be a part of the way we work as companies today,' he says. 'Even if it costs us a bit more it is totally worthwhile, in my opinion, if it results in our using fewer natural resources.

Greening the process

Since its inception, Sula has been working to integrate a wide array of measures at its own 240-acre vineyard and winery to minimise the environmental impact of its farming, processing and distribution practices.

These include the use of solar water-heating to meet the winery's hot water requirements, insulation of its wine-chilling tanks and energy-efficient lighting to minimise energy use, as well as greywater recycling and water metering, with targets to cut down on water use across all operations. Sula has an expanding bottle-recycling program too, and a growing suite of water-harvesting and catchment structures across the vineyard, which combined have a storage capacity of more than 30 million litres.

Similar efforts are being made to minimise use of pesticides.

'When we began working here, I was shocked by the way pesticides were being used by farmers in the region, and by the aggressive marketing of these products by chemical companies,' says Samant.

Having significantly reduced, and in some cases removed, the need for artificial pesticides, the team uses natural alternatives, such as copper, sulphur and biological pest control, alongside a careful pest-monitoring system, where individuals are assigned 15-acre blocks, which they monitor plant by plant for two hours daily.

'Where there is a need for pesticide we keep it to a minimum, making spot applications only on individual plants,' says Dr Neeraj Agarwal, vice president of vineyard operations, and resident viticulturalist.

Simple, sustainable systems

The wine industry may not be the most polluting industry in the world, but in Rajeev Samant's view, every business should be thinking about how to minimise its footprint.

To continue reading this article go to the following link, at The Ecologist Magazine.