Neil dropped out as he had to get to work for some urgent assignment and wanted to join us in the evening but didn't make it we also had a new face in the very quite Brian who is Nicole's friend, I'm hoping to see you for many more trips and I'm sure we will get to see the real Brian ;). Another small problem cropped up in the form of the vehicle hired, we had booked a Qualis but due to some problems we ended up getting a Sumo but nothing was going to stop us from getting to Nasik.
As decided we managed to leave by 5:45 AM and reached Nasik at 10:30 AM the traffic at the ghats caught up with us again, we checked in to Godavari Lodge and thereafter left to the shrine for a visit this was the reason for us to be here :) we then left for Sula Vineyards yeah u heard that right i know its Lent but we are a bunch of sinners, to know more about Sula visit their website http://www.sulawines.com/aboutus/story.htm
This was what we all were waiting for and Sula didn't disappoint, it was a 45 minute drive from the city/shrine the entrance to Sula was beautifully landscaped, the road leading to the main gates were lined with sunflowers and the grape vines.
We were all impatient to head to the Tasting room Edlin, Natasha and Lolita couldn't taste as they were fasting for lent but we the devils couldn't resist.The aroma of fermented grapes was just irresistible it felt like a heavenly scent Ahaaa!!!! we already felt intoxicated lol.
We were charged a minimal fee of Rs.100/head and were taken on a tour around the winery by our friend from Sula (seen in the pic) he gave us a lil history lesson about Sula and how it was founded, he talked about the Vineyard and the variety of grapes used we were shown the different stages involved in wine making like the Crushing, Adding of Yeast, Fermentation, bottling etc.
Our wait was finally over and we were taken to the tasting room so we could drown ourselves in this heavenly drink
We were given 5 varieties of wines for tasting since we were all novices wrt wine tasting none of us knew the intricacies involved,
we needed to swirl the wine in the glass and then smell and try and tell the different flavours which was very difficult for someone who loves drinking and so this was the most boring part what on earth will you get by trying to tell what flavours are there in the wine when you can taste it lol but it was a good learning experience nevertheless, we then needed to take a sip and once again swirl the wine in our mouth before gulping it down,the best of the lot for me was the Sula Late Harvest Chenin Blanc 2007 and the Sula Zinfandel 2007 i wanted to pick the Dindori Reserve which is the most expensive of the lot but unfortunately it was out of stock.
We were also very lucky as they had also setup barrels for the grape crushing/stomping, the traditional way of crushing grapes Reagan,Lolita,Natasha and Nicole (Bertron) decided to do the crushing, we were charged Rs.400/couple we had a great time watching them do the crushing while we sipped on some excellent wine.Check out the pix to catchup on the fun!
PS: After crushing the grapes and juice was discarded so don't worry about sipping wine made from those dirty feet :).
We spent a good 3-4 hours at the vineyard and then headed back to the city for lunch we stopped over at the tried and tested Kaka Ka Dhaba and had a sumptuous meal and then got back to the hotel for a much needed nap since most of us had come over after our night shifts.
After a really quick nap thanks to the irritating Nicole we began our night shift, we had some trusted rum to keep us warm thru the nite while Brian and Pakya chose to have Beer, the singing and dancing continued till 3:30 AM even after complaints from our neighbors :) we needed to catch some sleep as we had to leave for Bhandardhara early.
The fact that we slept late didn't help as our eyes could barely open up but we managed to wake up by 5:30 AM after getting ready we managed to leave at 7 AM.
Until now we had only heard about the beauty of Arthur Lake but upon reaching there we were in awe it seemed like paradise i don't think there could have been a better time to visit the place check out the pix.
We reached the place at around 9AM and went down to the lake in search of the boats we had to wait a while before the locals got hold of the people who would take us boating there were 4 boats two paddle boats and two row boats we chose a paddle and a row boat, the charges for the same were Rs.50/head, this was the first time i have gone rowing so it was real fun trying to maneuver the boat. The lake is said to have a depth of 200 ft. The boating lasted a good 30-40 mins. After the boating we headed to Anandvan and MTDC which are popular resorts there, in fact we were planning to spend the night at MTDC but canceled the plan.
On all our trips we have eaten at hotels and the food we ate was getting monotonous so i wanted this trip to be different, while driving to Bhandardara we saw many villages on the way and i was thinking to my self what kind of food do these locals eat i had only heard of the Bhakri's and Rotis till then i just told the guys "It would be great if we could request some locals to prepare food for us", while boating we had a person accompany us and so we asked him if there was anyone that could provide us with home cooked food, the answer was yes this got our taste buds tickling, he sent along one of the boys helping with the boating and we struck a deal we would be getting a thali which included Dal, Rice, 2 Vegetables, a chicken curry ,Bajra Rotis and मिर्ची चा ठेचा (this is a typical Maharashtrian dish and is prepared using chillies and spices) Yummmm! sounds tasty rite, Natasha was very impatient to have the ठेचा she also got our taste buds tickling, we had to go to the village which was located behind the MTDC resort to have the food, we were accommodated in a small room having cow dung flooring, the typical village setting the food was awesome but unfortunately they couldn't prepare the ठेचा , we were all disappointed and our Tigress (Amruta) really got pissed off and almost had a fight with them.
After having our fill we left beautiful Bhandhardhara for Bombay with lots of wonderful memories of this beautiful place!
