If you are one those who believe wine is loosing its age old charm with new tastes fascinating the old and the young very fast, think again. For, the fact is wine industry is mushrooming significantly with a rate of twenty five to thirty per cent annually.
With wine becoming almost a
lifestyle statement even for the upper middle-class families, India is catching up with traditional wine drinking countries like Italy and France. Gone are the days when all a wine drinker was bothered was about the number of glass of wine he or she is taking. Today many individuals are eager to know the aspects like where it comes from or how it is prepared. All this making good quality wines high in demand.
The industry holds a huge potential in the Indian market as more and more Indians are exposed to different cultures of the world. Once the return, they search for the same tastes and products in India.
"In India there are good products and good wines which only needs to be developed. It is very encouraging because you have your own products in India. Developing the taste for wine in general will be good not only for importers that we are but also for the local wine growers who have all reasons to believe in the future," says Dominique Girard, Ambassador of France to India.
"Definitely the trend is there which is evident in its spread in terms of wine consumption. It is really phenomenal. Again the trend shows that growth is ground somewhere between 25 to 30 per cent per annum. Although the actual size is still very small but as far as this trend is concerned, if it continues like this, there is a tremendous hope in the wine market. It is showing by the continuous interest of various people," said Rajiv Malhotra, Chief Executive Officer, LEMS.
Various companies from Italy and France are ready to invest in the Indian market after realising its potential. The Government of Maharashtra too is taking advantage of wine's newfound popularity. There is even talk of developing wine tourism, already very popular in regions like Bordeaux in France, Napa Valley in California, the Yarra Valley in Australia and the vineyards of the Cape in South Africa.
"In fact the past one year also we have grown substantially. If we compare it to our the rate of growth recorded last years, its phenomenal... and its just a start...so we look forward to much more," says Niyaiti Bhatt, Category Manager, Champagne Indage Ltd.
The wine-drinking culture is rapidly catching up. It is stoked by plenty of choices from local vineyards.
Interestingly, there are just four major producers of wine in India at present. Champange Indage being one of the largest producer and exporter of wine in India has a whopping 70 per cent market share in the wine industry.
Chougules were among the pioneers in this industry. Sula Wines have also placed large acreages under grape cultivation, while Grovers in Bangalore has several varieties blended with some of the finest French grapes.
Special strains of imported grapes are being cultivated for the wine industry, while there are plans to start such cultivation in Himachal Pradesh.
With more than 24,00,000 bottles of wine being guzzled every year, the wine industry is on an upward swing. Although there may be some time before Indian wines can compete with some of the vintage French, Italian, Californian or even South African, the wine produced in Narayan Gaon and Nasik in Maharashtra and Bangalore, is keeping many Indians in high spirits.