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All wine aficionados please note: something
very interesting is happening in the state of Maharashtra (India), where
grape farmers are turning to wine making in droves.
In the last three years some 430 winery
licences have been issued in that state, and about 25 new wineries are
either already operating or are in the process of being set up. It is
expected that in the next few years there will be over 100 wineries of
varying sizes operating in the state, which – coupled with the virtual
elimination of excise duty and sales tax on wines – will reduce prices and
spur off take and growth in this fledgling industry.
So, apart from the pioneer wine companies (Indage
& Sula) we now have Sankalp wineries, ND Wines, Dajeeba Wines, Flamingo
wines, VM Agrosoft, Bluestar Wines … you’ve probably not heard of most of
them, but watch this space!
The forward-looking “Grape & Wine Policy
(2001)” of the government of Maharashtra catalysed this unique phenomenon –
unique because for the first time a public-private initiative recognised
that wines are low-alcohol, good for health, and farmer-friendly, and worth
promoting: a far cry from the prohibitionist tendencies of yesteryear that
tarred all beverages containing the smallest amount of alcohol with the same
brush.
The early efforts of the new wineries are
commendable: given our climate, every year is a ‘vintage’ year in India, so
with a bit of tutoring in vinification techniques our new vintners are
turning out wines of surprisingly good quality – although, to be honest,
much of the stuff has a long way to go. But that’s only to be expected:
after all, it took the French hundreds of years to perfect their wine
making, so give our chaps another few years to get going up the “learning
curve”.
The biggest problems the new winemakers face
is in sales & marketing: wine drinkers in India are a finicky lot at the
best of times, and since import of wines was deregulated two years back
retail shelves are now laden with international wines – at prices ranging
from Rs 500 to Rs 5000 per bottle – and the home-grown brews get crowded
out. In addition, farmers have difficulty in dealing with the complexities
of selling wines in India – where it’s like operating in 30 different
countries since each state has its own duties & taxes and rules &
regulations re alcoholic beverages.
There’s also the tendency of people to equate
price with quality – and any wine that is not expensive cannot possibly be
any good! Which is absurd – imported wines here suffer customs duties of
200% or more, so quite often an Indian wine selling @ Rs 300 will be better
quality than its imported competitor retailing at more than twice that
amount.
All said & done there’s an enormous amount of
interest in this area, and I for one predict that the industry will grow
ten-fold in the next ten years. Let’s hope some other states follow the lead
of Maharashtra and ‘deregulate’ wine – who knows, in a few years time we’ll
be debating the relative virtues of, say, the 2005 vs the 2007 vintage from
Nashik Valley! |
