How Bengaluru woman built a wine brand in Bordeaux after escaping domestic violence

“I grew up seeing quiet hierarchies,” she says. Her father made decisions while her mother, despite her abilities, remained a homemaker. She studied hospitality at the MS Ramaiah Institute of Hotel Management and specialised in patisserie but a month before her wedding in 2004, she was told she could not work. She was not allowed to step out of the house unaccompanied unless she wore a sari, meet friends or even run a home bakery. But the worst was suffering domestic violence when she gave birth to a daughter in 2007.

That didn’t stop Stanley. Living near the local centre of Alliance Française in Bengaluru, she secretly enrolled in French classes. “I would say I was going to the market,” she says. At night, after putting her daughter to sleep, she listened to French audio on headphones. “Language became therapy and the voice of my rebellion. It also helped me imbibe a new culture so different from my own. I wanted to belong somewhere since my world seemed alien.” In 2013, Stanley sent out her résumé “just to see what my worth was.” Impressed by her fluency, a French IT firm offered to hire and train her in Paris. She secured permission to travel for a month. “I had to promise I would be back. In fact, signing up for counselling sessions, moving in as a nuclear family in another home and convincing my husband that my parents would take care of my daughter meant that I was pushing the door ajar,” she says.

France altered her sense of self. “For the first time, nobody controlled me,” she says. She walked alone at midnight, bought ice cream without explanation, managed her own schedule. Before returning to India for her daughter, she tattooed a bird on her shoulder — wings outstretched. Back home, hostilities mounted with her quitting jobs, attempting another, stealing her own passport and being thrown off a car at midnight.

“That did it. I knew if I stayed, I would disappear,” says Stanley, who enrolled in a Wine Marketing and Management MBA programme in Bordeaux in 2017 with the support of her mother. “I was the oldest in my class. But I was also the most determined,” she says. Internships at estates such as Château Siran introduced her to terroir, the relationship between soil, climate and human judgment. “You cannot artificially control everything,” she explains. Strict appellation laws in Bordeaux often prohibit irrigation, forcing vines to push roots deep into the earth. “That’s how I learnt that struggle creates character.” Sorting tables, monitoring fermentation tanks, topping up barrels to prevent oxidation, each stage requires precision.

“Wine teaches surrender. You cannot rush chemistry. You wait for the right moment,” she says. But business isn’t romantic. It is about regulation and risk, and Stanley became a hard-nosed negotiator. She registered her company in Bordeaux, directly sourcing from wineries for international markets. A London businessman commissioned a bespoke line. Hospitality clients sought advice on sourcing and branding. Then came her own label. Solicantus. “Soli is soil, Cantus means melody in Latin. The design inspiration for the label came from the surrealist imagination of artist Salvador Dalí. A golden swirl traces a wine’s journey to clarity, red symbolising transformation. I researched colour psychology carefully.” Soon, she adapted, expanding into tastings, education and consulting. “Wine is not excess. It is a social glue; a pause,” she says.

Operating in a male-dominated ecosystem remains complex. But she draws strength from the vines themselves. “Grapes are the most resilient fruit. The more they struggle, the better the vintage.” Her ambition is clear. “One day, I want to make my own wine. Some freedoms are worth waiting for.”