Le Vignoble!

Over the years, I have learnt one important thing. Do not say no to anything unless you have a valid reason. Because the best happens when you least expect it. A trip to vineyard was very tempting to be rejected. So when Alliance Française de Bangalore announced this event, I had no second thoughts about participating in it. My classmates, Sangeetha and Gowri joined my enthusiasm. 

On Sunday, the 6th of October, we met at AFB at around 7AM. It was a pleasant surprise to have Aman (A friend from AFB) and Shalini (My classmate from school who studies French at AFB) in the trip. We began our journey towards Mysore at around 7:15 AM.

Midway during the drive, Sangeetha, Gowri, Aman, Shalini, AFB director Philippe and I moved to the back seat and began playing dumb charades. Soon, we became friends with some A2 level students - Sathya, Arshad, Mir, Ravi and Abhinandan. Dumb charades was followed with Anthakshari. We quickly bonded with our new friends and the fun continued. 

Our first stop was at Maddur, for breakfast. After that, we took a deviation towards Talakad. Our first stop was at First agro Organic farm. An ex-Army, ex-pilot, runs this place and he gave us a brief introduction to the concept. We enjoyed walking around the farm and tasting some delicious cherry tomatoes. 

While others went ahead to Alpine vineyard in the bus, Gowri, Sangitha, Aman and I drove with Nithesh (the owner) on his jeep with cartons of Zucchini. We enjoyed that drive. Sitting at the rare end of that jeep and enjoying the breeze, we discussed future plans to cultivate, party and travel. 

At vineyard, Abhay, one of the employees explained to us the different stages of Wine making. We then tasted 3 types of white wine and 3 types of red wine. I liked the first white wine I tasted as it was sweet. My preference has been Port wine.

We had some excellent starters with salads, salsa, cream and peta bread. The vegetables came from the farm and they tasted brilliant. We next drove to the vineyard where a BBQ was setup. All through our drive we laughed a lot. Wine on empty stomach was doing its effect. 

After lunch, we were taught to prune the vines. We had to cut after the fourth bud. Apparently only the third and fourth produce grapes. We were assisted by several workers who guided us and laughed at our mistakes. They had fun teasing us.

After working hard, we returned to the plant. We decided to walk back instead of taking the jeep. On my way back, I spoke to Abhay who had chosen to learn wine making in France. Even though he thinks that the job is not paying him much he is happy to have done what he wanted to.

We bought some bottles of wine. tried their pink wine and called it a day.

On the way back we played more Dumb charades and the enjoyment did not end till we reached Bangalore. 

What an incredible day this turned out to be. We had a great experience at the farm and the vineyard. Moreover, we got to make interesting friends and developed strong bonding with the  friends from class.