Winemaking - Indulge India

Conversations with Indulge – Priyanka SAVE – Fruzzante

Born in Bordi, Maharashtra, this mechanical engineer is knitting a new revolution in the Indian alcoholic beverages scenes. A passionate entrepreneur now, Priyanka, along with her spouse Nagesh Pai, Canadian fruit-winemaker Dominic Rivard, and her strong roots connecting Chikoo with nostalgia and the future, has introduced to the denizens of India – Fruzzante – a passionate #VocalForLocal brand making sparkling alcoholic drinks from Mud Apple, Oranges, Pineapple, Strawberries, Strafruit, Mango and more.

This is her story, one that can turn you from a curious imbiber to a passionate drinker. If you still need motivation, look out for her soon-to-be-released book Fermenting Dreams

What drew you to producing such a unique product fruzzante in the first place?

Our journey began when I returned from USA for good and having farm at home, I saw that our Chikoo produce was getting wasted to the tune of 40%. Me & and my husband Nagesh Pai decided to do something about this and after lot of R&D we freezed on the idea of making wine from Chikoo. Then we reached out to Dominic Rivard noted expert from Canada known to make alcoholic beverage from fruits. Thus, our idea birthed into Fruzzanté.

Being a completely unheard category, what challenges did you face?

One of the earliest challenges that came to us were when we started making the Chikoo wine. It is a unique product and the first Chikoo wine in the world so there was quite an exhausting trial-and-error process. Another challenge was to get the excise duty exemption and getting fruit wines categorized among wines was also a major hurdle. We spent over three years and our concerted efforts eventually helped us get the exemption.

It must’ve been challenging to educate your consumers, how did you bridge the gap?

This is still an ongoing process for us. Our target age group is young audience in the age group of 25 to 35 years primarily. We are a sparkling alcoholic beverage and take efforts to educate the consumers the difference between wine, cider and alcoholic beverage. This is a long and ongoing process and we are using every possible platform to educate people about the difference.

What keeps you going in this line of profession?

Fruzzanté is my first entrepreneurial venture and it is always going to be like my child. The company has grown alongside my son and I cherish this project dearly. We had not planned on entrepreneurship when I returned from USA, but destiny made us entrepreneurs.

What’s your favourite tipple at the end of a busy day?

Our Starfruit Fruzzanté is my favourite. At the end of the hectic day, I like to take Sangria glass rimmed with salt & chilli and pour chilled Starfruit Fruzzanté. I recommend this highly to the readers too!

What’s your advice to young professionals seeking knowledge in this discipline?

I would say “Don’t be afraid to take on challenges and experiment with different products, you never know what you may discover”.

Priyanka Save is the founder/director of Hill Zill Wines, the company that owns the Fruzzanté brand.

Imagine yourself in the 1600s. Shahjahan has just completed CONSTRUCTING the magnificent Taj Mahal. Doesn’t that call for a toast? What’s better to pop open than a bottle of bubbly. But, here’s a problem. It’ll be cloudy, rustic, murky, and full of sediments? How’d you make it look like the modern day bubbly then?

Would you appreciate if your glass of Champagne was murky, unclean, and had shard of yeasts floating in it? Probably thats what ticked off Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, and she took upon self to clean all Champagnes there after.

Painting depicting Dom Perignon practicing winemaking

Earliest evidences of (bottle-fermented) sparkling wines were found in Limoux, France. Made by Benedictine monks in Abbey of Saint-Hilaire, near Carcassonne in 1531. Whereas, Dom Perignon made the champagne in 1693. Within a few centuries, these techniques were passed on to Spain, Germany, and other countries. Locally they were called Cava and Sekt, respectively. However, the question remains how did bubbles reach the bottle in the first place?

Earlier it was difficult for winemakers to remove yeast sediments from the bottle

Wines were ready in winters and bottled soon after. The yeast couldn’t stand the jittering cold and paused its workings. There was still some unfermented sugars in the bottle though. With the onset of summers, and the rising temperatures, yeast regained its workings, feasting on the sugars, and creating additional alcohol and bubbles. Voila! Upon opening these bottles, a surprise awaited. A gentle fizz was to be encountered. This was called the Ancestral Method of sparkling wines production, and that’s how Blanquette de Limoux is still produced.

A new change arrived in the Champagne region in 1801. Jean-Antoine Chaptal and Andre Francois mastered the science of secondary fermentation. But they couldn’t really figure the art of removing the dead yeast floating in the bottles. There comes in Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin aka Veuve Cliquot. In 1815, she created the process of clarify sparkling wines, called remuage. Prior to this, the task was unsophisticated, and wine were left cloudy and unclean.

It takes Remuer more than ten years of experience to learn the art

Madam Cliquot shifted her dining table to the cellar and put holes in them. Bottles were placed upside down, letting the yeasts settle at the neck. They were occasionally twisted, or ‘riddled’, to move the yeast to the desired position. In approximately six weeks, the dead yeast could be removed. Riddling became a highly skilled craft and the professionals were called remuer or a riddler. They could efficiently operating over 40,000 bottles a day, with exceptional skills and patience that’s rare to find today.

It was said that to become a qualified riddler, one would take at least ten years of intensive experience. Afterall, the task demanded delicate handling of every bottle, with necessary precision, and unhindered focus. Back then, each bottle was personally supervised. No doubt the practice was considered a style of meditation by the monks.

But then this art was expensive, time consuming, and riddlers became rare an further pricey. After all the price was to be paid by the consumers. And just in the nick of time, came in Gyropalette, an invention by two French vintners, that was first introduced at the house of Cava Codorniu in Spain. It could process over 500 bottles in one go, and duplicate the process of riddling spanning over 6 months, in 48 hours!

Gyropalette can duplicate the riddling process with more than 500 bottles in one go

For a Champagne house, like Moet & Chandon, producing approximately 28 million bottles a year, a brigade of 700 professionals would be required to execute remauge. And that only when they’ll be working for six weeks straight!

Being labour-intensive, cost-bearing, and space-hoarding a process, manual remuaging is no longer commercially practiced. Some houses still hold on to this age-old process, but they can be counted. Technology has made our wines cleaner, fresher, and at least better looking. On the other hand, made the hands of ancient craftsmen redundant.