SDU Winery is one the finest boutique winery located nearly 75kms away from Bangalore.  The first time one hears the world ‘Boutique Winery’, it sure does ring a bell.  But it’s the terms referred to Winery that’s Family-owned, making Artisan Wines with limited production and unique style.   It’s heartening to see SDU Winery being one of the very few Boutique Winery that’s located very close to Bangalore city.  I recently got an opportunity to visit the beautiful Winery and experienced the pairing of select wines from SDU with food.

History of SDU Winery

The Vineyard was setup nearly 15-20 years back across the 70 acres land almost near the foot-hills of Nandi Hills.  After looking at the quality of the grapes coming out of these vineyards, the Owner & Director Shambhavi Hingorani decided to make wines.  They roped in one of the experienced wine-makers from Italy, Andrea Valentinuzzi.

Wine making first started with the release of ‘Deva’ in 2013.  Since then they have been making some nice white and red wines.  SDU now have a collection of wines with different names like Reserva, Trilogy, Deva and Wine Makers Section.

The wines produced are sold only across 4 states Karnataka, Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.

SDU Winery

The drive of 1.5hrs to the Winery is quite amazing as the roads leading up to the Winery are good.  While driving one can get scenic view of the mountains and lakes.

On entering the SDU Winery, one can see a small vineyard to the right side.  The place is surrounds by mountains and the view from the balcony on first level looks spectacular.  There’s are recreation facilities like Lawn Tennis and Mini-Basketball for guests.

Main building of the Winery is large as it houses the Winery plant, Tasting Rooms and Lounge sections.   One can see the Barrel Room, Processing plant, Lounge area and everything looks neat clean.  There are some wonderful paintings put on the wall that looks good.

Lounge area on the first floor has some nice artwork, sketches on the wall.  One can also buy wines across the counter while sitting in the Lounge section.

Wine Making Process

The grapes used are specially imported from France and are carefully grown & nurtured.  Wines are making in both Barrel and high-quality Stainless-steel containers.   French oak barrels are used that bring out the subtle and spicy, offering textures of sating or silk.

Once the grapes are plucked from the vineyards in the evening, they go through process of crusher & de-stemmer.  The extracted grape juices are then fermented in one of the stainless-steel tanks with automatic temperature control.  Refrigeration allows the fruitiness of the grapes to be preserved.

After fermentation, the wine is allowed to age in the same tanks and checked regularly to ensure wine characters are preserved.  Once the wine’s ready, its bottled and packaged.

Selection of wines are matured in the French Oak casks for minimum 6 months that produces the “Reserva” wines.  Winery has an extensive Tasting Room with both indoor and open-air setting.

Wine Makers Selection

A beautiful wine that’s made from the top 2% grapes from the vineyard.  The special wine has characteristics of vintage and great personality.  Its also got the power, finesse, structure and textures.  Only 999 bottles of WMS have been made and are available at select places across the Bangalore city.

Sunday Brunch with Wine Pairing

In my earlier section, I mentioned that SDU Wines are available across limited hotel as well across Bangalore city. To name a few of the hotels where one can find SDU Wines – Hyatt Centric, Shangri-La, Royal Orchid and few more.

SDU Winery setup a special Sunday Brunch in association with Chef Manish Uniyal, Hyatt Centric Bangalore.  Chef’s worked with wine-makers to identify dishes matching the wine flavors.

The threes wines paired with food were – SDU Reserva Chardonnay 2014, SDU Reserva Cebrenet Sauvignon 2014 and SDU Wine Makers Selection 2014.

Food Pairing

Starters were paired with SDU Reserva Chardonnay 2014 that’s a white-wine.  The vegetarian dish prepared was this round of pairing was Salt Baked Pears, Candied Walnut and Radicchio with Ginger bread.  Presentation was spot on the flavoured seem to work well with the white-wine.  The non-vegetarian dish Crab & Cucumber Tian with Baby Greens was loved by friends.

Entrées were paired with SDU Reserva Cebrenet Sauvignon 2014 that’s a red wine.  Pithivier of Wild Mushrooms, Walnuts & Blue Cheese Bruee was the Vegetarian dish that was prepared.  The dish had variety of mushrooms that were cooked very well and lightly seasoned.  Like the starters, I loved the presentation and the pairing was great with the heavy bodied wine.  Slow cooked duck leg, Baby carrots and orange sauces was the non-vegetarian dish paired with the wine.

For the Main course, Pan Seared Semola Stack, Vegetables & Tomato Fondue was prepared.  This dish was paired with the Wine Maker Selection.  The dish had a lot of flavours coming from Vegetables & Tomato Fondue.  But I would have loved it more if there was a little more seasoning & spice in the dish.  Full marks in terms of presentation of the dish.

Non-Veg lovers got Lamb Noisettes, Potato Rostie & Asparagus, Cabernet Glaze.  The presentation looked spot on and I felt tempted to grab a bite from the plate.

The final course of the meal was the dessert and we had Bitter Chocolate Truffles.  Taste was so irresistible that I could not stop myself until I finished it completely.  I enjoyed the same while sipping on my WMS.

Overall Experience

It was a great experience visiting the beautiful SDU Winery, trying the wines and interacting with the owner Shambhavi Hingorani.  I could sense the passion in her voice and her abundance of knowledge on wines.  Special appreciation to Karishma Thakur for walking us through the Winery and sharing many intricate details.  Thanks to Chef Manish Uniyal for identifying specific dishes for the wine.

SDU Winery has been hosting similar event in the past for a group of 12-24 people.  I specially recommend to every wine-lover across the city to look out for event-updates on FB and be part of the next event.

More Info

SDU Winery
644,645,646, Alkapura Village, Thondebhavi Hobli, Gowribidanur Taluk, Chikkaballapur District, Vedalaveni, Karnataka 561213
081553 29296

https://goo.gl/maps/R4UWgMLbrD32