Hosted by wine baron Sham Chougule, chairman, Champagne Indage Ltd, the festival was based the lines of the famous wine festivals of France. It was marked by ceremonial events like harvesting of grapes, a walk through the vineyards, planting of individual vines and grape harvest stomp. It also had a tour of the winery that, according to Chougule, produces about two million bottles of wine and champagne every year.

Flying into Pune from Mumbai by a specially chartered air craft were a sprinkling of celebrities including Nina Pillai, Subhash Dandekar (chairman, Camlin), Ajit Wadekar, Kumar Gaurav, Sanjeev Malhotra (of Oberois, Mumbai) Namrata Dutt, Devika Bhojwani, Anil Dharker, Malavika Sanghvi, Madhu Sapre, Anish Trivedi and Sangeeta Chopra who arrived at the Lohegaon airport early Sunday morning.

They then proceeded to Narayangaon by road on the luxury buses that had lined up at the airport.

The entrance to the Chateau Indage premises itself wore a festive look, attracting hordes of wide-eyed villagers who thronged the gates for a glimpse of the celebrity cavalcade. As each busload or carload of VVIP guests arrived, they were given the traditional welcome of kumkum and rose petals. Followed by cool glasses of champagne, of course!

Adding their bit of sparkle to the glitterati were also VVIPs from Pune and nearby towns. They included Tetra Pak's Lila Poonawala, Ruby Hall's Dr Feroze Grant, Karen Anand and Srimant Chatrapati Shahu Maharaj of the royal family of Kolhapur. Corporate bigwigs including Ramesh Garware, Sunita Kalyani and Tellis Baker of Mercedes Benz arrived at the venue in a helicopter. The eagerly-awaited personalities including Sunil Gavaskar, Geet Sethi and Kapil Dev failed to make an appearance.

There was also an impressive line-up of international guests including Eric Wente, CEO, Wente Vineyards of Livermore California, Rose Murray Brown, wine critic, Michael Wilkomm, managing director, Peter Mertes, Bernkastel, Germany, Antoine Merlaut, head of the Taillan group, France.

After the welcome it was time for the ceremonial harvesting of grapes ritual where the invitees were asked to snip off the bunches of grapes growing in the adjacent vineyards and deposit them in wicker baskets.

Next on the agenda was the march through the vineyards accompanied by lezim in tandem with the fervent beating of drums.

The cynosure of all eyes, however, was the huge wooden tub filled with 250 kg of blackgrapes, ready for the stomping ritual. Making a beeline to it were a whole lot of spirited folks, including Danielle Lousie Coney, Miss California 1998-99 and Ranjit and Vikrant Chougule, who proceeded to enthusiastically crush the fruits under their feet. Not surprisingly, the resultant grape juice that flowed out from a pipe near the bottom found no takers!

Alongwith the 18 varieties of wines displayed in the wine tasting area, a pride of place had been allotted to the Millennium champagne. The pink-coloured Rose champagne will be officially launched at the end of the year and will be available, according to Dhananjay Datar, consultant and former vice-president of the company, only during the millennium year 2000.

A blend of the sparkling white and red wine, the price for the premium wine that will have to be especially ordered, is estimated to be close to Rs 2,500.

Chougule hailed the fact that Indian wine has come into its own, with the company exporting their product to 12 countries including Germany, Canada, Switzerland and the United Kingdom under labels like Omar Khayyam, Soma and Anarkali.

Having merged his two companies, Champagne India, that used to produce only for purposes of export till recently, and Indage India, engage in production for the domestic market, into Champagne Indage Limited, Chougule revealed his plans to bring another 2,500 acres under plantation to the already existing 700 acre within the next five years to take the production capacity to 10 to 15 million bottles per year. This despite the fact that Indian per head consumption of wine is abysmally low. While Italians apparently consume some 60 litres of wine per head every year, the French 57 and the British about 22, the figure for Indian consumption is as low as .007 per head, added Chougule.

Flushed with the excitement the festival seemed to generate, the chairman also announced his decision to make it an annual affair, as in other wine-producing countries of the world in a bid to promote wine culture and tourism. Well, that's the spirit.