Handcrafted by Hand
“Wine is living memory captured in oak and glass.”
A Craft, Not a Business
For most of my life, my work has lived in boardrooms and systems — strategy, technology, the demands of running large-scale operations. It’s work I care about. But it isn’t where I create.
Wine found me first, on a business trip to the Bay Area in 1998 — one pour, and I was curious for good. I met Somna in July 2001, and we married a year later, in July 2002. We both came from humble beginnings, and neither of us expected a life that would include a cellar. We chose Napa Valley for our honeymoon, and that trip is where we fell in love with wine country together, not just wine.
The dream took real shape in 2011, the year our first daughter was born. Then in 2017, back in Napa, we sat down and blended our very first wine together — nothing serious, just an afternoon experience, but it was enough. We looked at each other and knew we wanted to actually make wine, not just drink it. In 2021, we crushed our first real barrel at The Wine Room, and the dream became real.
Since then it has become something closer to a second education. Every year we visit wine country to keep learning — Napa, Sonoma, Paso Robles, Malibu, Santa Barbara, and Pleasanton here in California, and further afield in Spain and Greece, as well as wineries closer to home in New Jersey and New York. I have gone further myself too, taking coursework through UC Davis’ winemaking program and working toward a Viticulture Certificate at Washington State University. We’re still learning, one glass at a time.
Somna and I have been building a life together for more than two decades now — a marriage, three daughters, a home in New Jersey, and, somewhere along the way, a cellar. Every wine we’ve made since carries a piece of that life. JIAS holds our family’s initials. The Proprietor’s Daughters carries the spirit of our girls. DrAKsa honors where we come from. And G5 — bottled the year we both turn fifty — holds the whole story at once.
This isn’t something we built to scale. It’s a craft we return to, barrel by barrel, to mark the moments that matter — and to share, in small pours, with the people we love.
If wine has never been your thing, let me try to change your mind with a love story instead of a tasting note. Somna and I married in July 2002 and chose Napa Valley for our honeymoon, mostly because it looked beautiful in photos — we did not know a thing about wine yet. We fell for wine country before we ever fell for wine itself. Years later, almost on a whim, we sat down together and blended a wine of our own, and that one afternoon is the real reason any of this exists. Every bottle here traces back to that feeling: two people, curious and a little clueless, discovering something new together. You do not need to know anything about wine to start. You just need someone to share a glass with. That’s genuinely all it ever took for us.
Jai & Somna Gulati
Five Years, Vintage by Vintage
Inception
Our first real barrel, made at The Wine Room — the moment a dream years in the making finally became real, and the start of five years of winemaking that would become Gulati Wines.
DrAKsa
Named for the Sanskrit word for grapes — our second barrel ever, honoring our heritage and more than twenty-five years together.
JIAS & The Proprietor’s Daughters
Two wines, two tributes: JIAS, our family’s sacred cipher, and The Proprietor’s Daughters, marked by the blue dragonfly, celebrating our three girls.
G5
Bottled to mark fifty years — the Power of Five: five grapes, five Gulatis, five years of winemaking, and fifty years of life for both Jai & Somna.
What’s Next
Two wines rest quietly in the cellar: a Beckstoffer Red Hills five-grape reserve, and a Silver Oak heritage clone Cabernet Sauvignon. Releasing 2027.
Every Wine Tells a Story
From a family cipher to a dragonfly emblem to the Power of Five — each bottle carries a piece of who we are. Read the full story behind every wine on Our Wines.
