FRUITS OF LABOUR: Jacob himself does the tilling and sowing at Beulah Farm

Visitors to Ooty seldom come away without a visit to the Botanical Gardens. Visitors to Coonoor, along the long, winding road uphill to Ooty, seldom come away without a trip to K. Eapen Jacob's backyard. A rusting, crooked signpost points to Beulah Farm ("Blessed by God" in Hebrew), Jacob's 1.5-acre backyard or "kitchen garden", undulating as far as the matchbox-sized settlements on the folds of the hillocks in the distance. The famed "green patch" overshadows Jacob's decrepit, ageing dwelling. But the house is a veritable wine cellar, reeking of many colours, many smells. Hundreds of bottles of red, rose, white and pale wine jostle for space inside musty cupboards and unlit back rooms, and underneath wobbly tables. The air outside is equally intoxicating.

Puckering his brows, Jacob, 77, surveys his piece of land-part of a once sprawling 8-acre plot that he had to sell to the Government-and takes a long, deep breath of the salubrious morning air. For the chemical engineer-turned-agriculturist, it's the beginning of another day of labour. The strawberry patch needs weeding, the unusually tall (9-ft) rose plants have to be pruned and the brewery has to be spring-cleaned.

The idiosyncratic oenophile is quite popular among the officers-and their families-of the Defence Services Staff College located in Coonoor. Perhaps anyone who has an exotic selection of wines would be. Stashed into every nook and cranny of his home are bottles containing 16 different varieties of wine, which he calls "nectars" or "elixirs of the Gods". The "nectars", he insists, are his own discoveries and made without yeast. Unusual. "People find it hard to believe that I ferment wine without yeast. My conversations with God make it possible," Jacob pre-empts with a shrug. Unabashedly religious, Jacob is also an astute businessman-he refuses to let out his trade secrets. Even a trip to his crude back-room brewery will not throw up anything about the mysterious ingredients. Nothing but large, earthen urns and glass bottles there.

Jacob's "nectars" are made from not just grapes, as is the wont, but other "bounties of nature" from the farm: passion fruit, strawberry, rhubarb, peach, roses, apple and-as "nothing goes waste on Beulah Farm"-even rose-hip and stalks. He's now onto his 17th "brainwave"-a "nectar" brewed from lemon rind. But the rose "nectars" are clearly his speciality. The dense copse of 25 rose shrubs by the house stands proud, bursting into black, yellow and red blooms. This is Beulah Farm's most idyllic spot.

Braving the forbidding thorns, Jacob has innumerable discourses with the flowers, as he fondly tends to them, taking care never to crush them under his feet, never allowing them to hang their heads in shame. The extra care helps. Every year, Jacob makes over 1,000 bottles of rose "nectar". With an alcohol content of up to 13 per cent, the wines-funnelled into discarded, recycled, newly labelled squash bottles-are a great draw. Today, Jacob has not only earned the respect of the people in Coonoor but has international clients too, people who first came to him as tourists and returned as buyers.

That's not all. Jacob's sinful strawberry syrups, peach preserves and marmalade (Rs 100 a bottle) are a favourite with residents and local hotels alike. Letters of recognition and commendation from visitors crowd his living room. To cater to the demand, he makes over two tonnes of strawberry preserve a year. "The best quality strawberries go into jam making, the second into making wine," he says.

Sometimes, Jacob lets out the farm-it has a lake with cement benches on the bank-for fishing and, when the nights get chilly in the hills, for barbecue-campfires. Tilling and sowing the land himself, sometimes playing instrumental music over loudspeakers that he has specially installed on the farm for the plants, Jacob also grows herbs for "Oriental and Continental cooking". The scents of asparagus, thyme, oregano, basil, chives, bay leaves and apple mint deliciously converge in the air. Jacob's out-of-town customers have included a Unilever team from England, the Taj Savoy hotel in Ooty, and a group from "the Taj hotels from the north" that had flown down to "consider my products". Jacob says some of his "nectars" even have medicinal properties. The nectar of the passion fruit, he maintains, is good for blood pressure.

Visitors to Beulah Farm seldom come away without feeling heady and inebriated-from all the wine sipping. They also take home a rather unusual bouquet: of roses, herbs and "nectars".