Q. What made you choose the subject?
A. I have been travelling to India for nine years. After having seen many, though not all, of the 'must-see' tourist attractions, I suggested to my husband that we visit wineries in 2012. So, we did a five-day whirlwind trip around Bangalore, Pune and Nashik. It was a great, even if a tiring way of understanding wine production in India. A few articles for magazines followed. During the desk research and writing, it became clear that there was no book or comprehensive information on Indian wines to refer to. So, an idea emerged to write a book, but it took me a while to take the bull by the horns. On a spring day in 2014, as I was on the double-decker to work, I came across (British wine critic) Jancis Robinson OBE, MW tweeting about a few days left to submit application for the Geoffrey Roberts Award. The award consisted of £4,000 as a grant to a project "promoting New World wines". I wondered whether India was too new of a New World country, but as advised by my husband, my job was to write a good application and the panel of trustees would decide. I was fortunate to be given the award and as such, the rest is history.

A worker at the Grover Zampa Vineyards in Nandi Hills, the South wine region of Karnataka. Pic courtesy/The Press Publishing (Gabor Nagy & Peter Csizmadia-Honigh)