Napa Valley’s Domaine Rewa
Entrepreneur Gajendra Singh Sareen tells gemma price how he turned his passion for wine into a thriving Napa concern
THERE’S A JOKE in the wine world: how do you make a small fortune? You take a large fortune and buy a winery.
But newly minted vintner Gajendra Singh Sareen, who released his first vintage of Cabernet Sauvignon from his
Napa Valley estate this year, has no intention of fulfilling that punchline.
“It has to make money because there are people involved in the business – winemaker, farmer, managers, salespeople – who all have to be rewarded with the spoils,” says the gregarious Singapore citizen, the first to own a wine property in this lauded Californian wine region. “At high tide, all ships go up.”
Set atop a rocky knoll in Napa’s up-and-coming Coombsville sub-appellation, Rewa Vineyards (named for Sareen’s wife) is a beautiful spot. Half its 17 hectares are planted with undulating vines; the rest are devoted to a house, swimming pool and landscaped grounds peppered with gnarled 350-year-old oak trees. When he bought the property in 2012, Saree n–also CEO and founder of Singapore headquartered tyre company Omni United – didn’t envisage it as a bucolic, executive-airport-accessible escape among the vines, but a place to make high-end, estate-grown wines for collectors of Napa Cabernet.
And he’s assembled a talented team to do just that. Celebrated viticulturist Mike Wolf, named Napa Valley Grower of the Year in 2015, is farming the vineyards. After experimenting with 2013 and 2014 fruit and discarding both productions because they weren’t up to snuff, Sareen hired esteemed winemaker Celia Welch – she makes Scarecrow for JJ Cohn, a bottling that regularly receives 100 points from Robert Parker – to create Rewa’s 2015 vintage.
The result is a beautifully balanced wine: robust acidity and structured tannins – hallmarks of age-worthiness – with aromas of fresh red fruit, touches of vanilla and forest floor, and juicy, purple berry flavours.
“I met a winemaker in Burgundy [who] told me that wine is just the expression of the soil. My thinking is that we shouldn’t manufacture wine but just go with it. Every year the wine should logically taste different,” explains Sareen, a passionate wine collector whose preferences tend towards the elegant Pinot Noirs of Burgundy’s most lauded AOCs.
Of his collection of 8,000-or-so bottles scattered among his US, European and Singapore properties and bonded warehousing, 200 are Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, from the sought-after Burgundian producer (a single bottle of 2015 vintage costs around US$3,590; a 1978 Romanée-Conti Grand Cru will set you back US$27,000 at auction). Sareen won’t reveal the most he’s ever spent on a bottle, simply stating he believes everybody should drink the best wine they can afford. He’s similarly coy about naming a favourite vintage, professing he has many.
“But I tried the Richebourg 2005 a few days back and it was delicious,” he says.
Settled in comfy chairs by Rewa’s pool, me
swaddled in a fluffy jacket against the cooling early evening, Sareen dressed stylishly in khakis and a jumper, we uncork a 2012 Gevrey Chambertin Premier Cru from Burgundy’s Domaine Dujac. We talk about innovations in high-end wine, namely the potential in chip facilitated tracking technologies. Sareen’s eyes light up as he considers the possibility of putting chips into wine labels so buyers can see exactly where their premium purchase has been in the decades since it was bottled.
“Provenance is very important. There’s nothing more disappointing than opening a 1966 Château Mouton Rothschild and the damn thing turns out to be vinegar,” he explains.
Sareen’s own provenance as an Indian
Sikh (prior to moving to Singapore, he was a captain in the Indian infantry and decorated for gallantry) informed Rewa’s bottle labels: Napa-based artist Michael McDermott drew on 19th-century Sikh ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s sword to create Rewa’s ornately detailed black-and-silver motif to depict grapevines, fruit and foliage.
Sareen left India on an impulse in 1994, and his move to buy property in Napa was no less spur-of-the-moment. Three weeks after mentioning he’d be interested in acquiring wine-country property at a party, he was preparing the paperwork.
“Most of the things I’ve done in my life, I’ve done the right things for the wrong reasons!” he jokes.
It seems to be a formula that works.
Rewa’s inaugural release of 220 cases is all but gone, sold to its mailing list, comprised largely of private introductions and a limited selection of restaurants and distributors. You can find Rewa at Thomas Keller’s Napa flagship restaurant The French Laundry, which has earned three Michelin stars for 12 consecutive years, for US$650, plus tax and service. (Welch’s 2015 Scarecrow bottling is US$1,200.) The Napa Grill in Switzerland, run by a former collector, which offers top-shelf Napa Cabs alongside grilled meats, is another outlet.
There’s still a little room on the allocation list before the release of Rewa’s first Sauvignon Blanc in October and the 2016 Cabernet next February, estimated to top out at 250 cases. Membership is wait-list only.
Maybe Sareen will buy another winery; maybe not. “Nothing in my life has been planned. You roll the dice, move with it and keep going.”
“MY THINKING IS WE SHOULDN’T MANUFACTURE WINE BUT JUST GO WITH IT. EVERY YEAR IT SHOULD LOGICALLY TASTE DIFFERENT”