Aptech CEO Ninad Karpe loves brewing his own wine

There is little that Aptech’s CEO and MD enjoys better than a glass of wine — made by himself.

The soft-spoken Ninad Karpe, CEO and Managing Director, Aptech, can hold quite a conversation on information technology and education.

What is not talked about much is his love for wine and how he enjoys making it at home.

"I do it for myself," Karpe says during an interview at his well-appointed Worli pad. ‘‘This is the first time I am talking about it beyond family and friends."

Karpe has been making wine at home for around 15 years. "There was no internet then. I’d read that it could be done at home and thought I could give it a shot too," he says.

‘‘I experimented and slowly, with every year, I got better." In an ideal situation, a vintner has acres of land in places like Nashik or Bengaluru. Karpe calls himself an amateur who isn’t doing too badly with limited resources.



Karpe begins work on his wines each year in April or May. After overnight soaking of the fruit — he experiments with grapes and jamuns — he crushes it and stores the mix in a wine jar, adding wine yeast and sugar.

Once the fermentation process stops, he separates the wine from the sediments. The wine becomes drinkable after five or six months.

Karpe does not use chemicals, even if that sometimes causes the wines to go sour. He gets his wine yeast from the US and grapes from Nashik or Akluj, Solapur.

He says the grapes available in Mumbai are a bad idea because of their pesticide content. He makes four or five bottles of wine and stashes them away after labelling them, in cool and dark conditions.

Karpe drinks his wine himself or with friends. But he follows the growing wine culture in India. He is a regular at wineries in Nashik and Akluj and thinks some great wines are being produced in India.

At the top of his recommendation list are the Fratelli Sette from Fratelli Wines in Akluj and the Sula Rasa from Sula Vineyards in Nashik.