Wine and music mingle to add zing to fest

As winter goes on the wane to make way for spring - a 'tipsy' gourmet music festival here has 12,000 Indian and international visitors flocking to not only tickle their 'wine buds' but also enjoy a rare mix of music genres.

Amid the lush green landscape, the 10th edition of the SulaFest 2017 opened to a grand start on Friday in the foothills of Sahyadri mountain range.

The event, that had started as a one-day event in 2008 with 300 visitors, has burgeoned to a three-day festival that attracts a huge gathering of connoisseurs of wine, music and food from far and near.

The weekend is set to see around 17,000-18,000 visitors, according to organisers.

This year being the decadal year, the festival has been scaled up with more stalls of wines and a stellar musical lineup.

At the SulaFest Bazaar - where people buy their preferred wine and liquor from the counters, Bruno Vanzan - the brand ambassador of Antica Sambuca and Volare Liqour - drew a sizeable crowd as he presented his signature style of preparing cocktails with a sprinkling of acrobatics and dance on Friday evening.

People cheered the music bands that regaled the audience with groovy foot-tapping numbers as well as soulful Sufism-soaked renderings.

Be it electro acoustic, techno, pop, electronica, rock, Indie or reggae, it was all there,

Among those to perform on Friday evening, were Zoya Mohan, Indian-origin US-based DJ known for her innovative folk-intertwined remixes; Donn Bhat, an electronic producer; Nucleya - one of the early proponents of the dance music form Dubstep; Neeraj Arya of Kabir Cafe fame; Raghu Dixit of The Raghu Dixit Project and the all-season Indian Ocean, among others.

With their Sufi-tinged numbers and numerous 'jugalbandi' on different instruments, Indian Ocean were the favourites of the day.

(Nirmal Anshu Ranjan is in Nashik at the invitation of SulaFest and can be contacted at nirmal.r@ians.in)

--IANS

nir/rn/vm