Sonal Holland

Coming Up

Wine education in India often starts with translation, and Sonal Holland built her early training around that work. University of Mumbai, IHM Mumbai, and the Japan Saké and Shochu Makers Association gave her a base that spans formal study and specialist beverage education, before her career moved into the corporate sector. The shift from sales to wine service marked a change in scale, not in discipline. Sonal Holland rose to serve as director of National Sales at NASDAQ-listed Fortune 500 company until 2007, then moved into hospitality as Divisional Head of wine & beverage at ITC Hotels. From there, she began building her own platforms around the category.

Where They Are Now

Today, Sonal Holland works through SoHowines Consulting and continues as the founder of Sonal Holland Wine Academy and the founder of India Wine Awards. What connects those roles is a single practical aim: making wine more accessible to Indian consumers. The work sits across education, media, retail, and institution-building, but the throughline stays consistent. Wine is treated here as something to be understood, used, and brought into ordinary life with less noise and more clarity.

In Their Words “I’m Sonal C Holland, India’s only Master of Wine and a passionate explorer of everything extraordinary in food, drinks, and lifestyle.” The line places expertise and range in the same frame. It points to a practice that moves across category boundaries without losing precision, with food, drinks, and lifestyle treated as connected parts of one field of work. “I believe life is meant to be savoured—one exceptional sip, one unforgettable bite, and one fabulous experience at a time.” Read as a professional statement, it describes an approach to taste and presentation: measured, sensory, and built around memorable detail. It also matches the broader public role Sonal Holland has shaped around wine—less gatekeeping, more usable language.

Honors

Sonal's honors include Top 100 Most Powerful People in Indian Luxury, Innovative Woman of Substance Award, India's only Master of Wine recognition, Wine Personality of the Year, and Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Indian Luxury. Taken together, those honors show how her work has landed across luxury, beverage, and leadership circles. They also track the same core contribution that runs through her career: bringing wine into clearer public view in India without separating it from pleasure.