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Hotels to Bring Wine Prices Down
April 17, 2008: The government has given an ultimatum to hotels and restaurants enjoying duty free wine and liquor purchase to bring down their prices on wine and liquor or face withdrawal of duty- free benefits. If the FHRAI directives are followed in the right spirit, it will be a move in the positive direction for the wine industry in India, feels Subhash Arora.
FHRAI has given a 'directive' to cap the gross margins on wines to 250% of the cost and liquor margins to four times the total costs including munchies. If it is self-imposed in the right spirit (pun intended), it could result in a price drop of 25-40 %, fuelling demand and spelling boom for importers, hoteliers and consumers alike.
India is world’s 'most sought-after' retail market, concludes survey of global retailers
New Delhi, April 15, 2008: In a recent survey, 300 global retailers, representing a global portfolio of around 25,000 stores, who are looking to expand outside their domestic markets, have identified India as the most sought-after retail destination, reports www.indiaretailbiz.com.
The survey was conducted by London-based C B Richard Ellis, a leading real estate services firm, to get latest insight into retailer attitudes towards the world's emerging retail destinations. The report indicates that 40% of the surveyed retailers consider emerging markets to provide their main source of growth over the next five years. India is considered particularly attractive because of the size of its market compared to its low presence of international retailers.
South Africa's Distell to foray into Indian wine market
Cape Town, April 13, 2008: India appears to be hot on agenda of world’s best wine makers. After an announcement by one of the largest wine producers in the world, Diageo to introduce French wine Bordeaux in India this month, it’s the turn of South Africa’s leading wine producer, Distell, to target the country’s growing wine market. The company is planning to launch high-end premium wines of its flagship brand, Nederburg in India before the year-end.
"We will launch our Manor House collection (Sauvignon Blanc, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon) which is produced from our top performing vineyards, and Ingenuity (white-blend and red-blend), which is our apex label and houses unusual, one-of-a-kind blends," Tariro Masayiti, wine maker, Nederburg, Distell, told Sunday ET.
Completely sold out on India
April 12, 2008: Miguel Torres, head of the iconic Catalan wine house of the same name, was on his annual trip to India this week. Ever since his Spanish wines hit the Indian market around a decade ago, Torres has been making what can only be called a pilgrimage, to these shores. I say pilgrimage advisedly as he confided this time that once he hands over full time responsibilities in his family run bodega, he will devote more time to understanding Hinduism!
As that will happen only three years from now, on this trip too, the personable Spaniard had his friendly blue eyes fixed mainly on developing the Indian market. The only aside he was on the progress of his pet project - funding the Spanish NGO Fundacion Vicente Ferrar to expand their rural development work in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh. His is the second wine house I’d heard of, incidentally, that who has contributed to such projects in India, the other being Maison Albert Bichot from Burgundy.
Wine makers now prefer aluminium caps over corks
Melbourne, April 10, 2008: Uncorking the bubbly, the iconic symbol of hi-society celebration honed into a ritual over the decades, is turning into an unintended victim, thanks to the wine industry’s quest for technology upgradation.
A number of winemakers, including global players like Moet & Chandon and Fosters Group, are showing a marked preference for aluminum crown caps over the good-old wine cork. As a result, the pomp associated with opening a bottle of wine could vanish over a period of time and your wine opener could become a museum piece.
Draught from the Valley
Mumbai, April 2, 2008: The French discovered it long ago, and made it their monopoly. The Indians discovered it nearly a decade ago, and now Kolkata is swearing by it. Well, it’s not too hard to guess what it is that the gentlemen in the city are swearing by these days. It is but a bottle of wine and best of all it is homegrown in the valleys of Nashik. For those who associated wine with French valleys think again, for Indian wines are here to stay.
Bichitra Saha, a Kolkata based architect and builder, has been a wine drinker since his early days and he admits that these days he has a glass of Indian wine each evening with his dinner. "To be honest French wines are so expensive that it is impossible to even think of having them every day. So my expensive bottles of wine are reserved for very special occasion. But on a regular basis, or when I am throwing a party at home, it is the Indian variety, which I serve," says Saha.
Yatin Patil: Taking Vintage Wines across India
Mumbai, March 31, 2008: Yatin Patil, 34, Director, Vintage Wines, started his own wine label in 2002. His aim for the next five years is to build on the premium of the Reveilo brand and take it across the country.
Like any management graduate, Patil also walked right into the corporate world, unsatisfied he gave up his job and decided to walk down the entrepreneurial path and turned 200 acres of his family-owned grape plantation in to a vineyard. Testing the fruit of success does not come easy. So, Patil researched extensively and surveyed the Italian and French wine markets before setting up in Vintage Wine a state-of-the-art winery at Nashik.
United Spirits' winery to start in 2008
Mumbai, March 28, 2008: The United Spirits winery in Baramati is ready to take up its first ever harvest of the 2008 vintage. The company will be launching six varieties of wines this year with a target of 5 million bottles in five years.
Built over a plot of 300 acre, the crushing at the winery has begun and the bottling will begin by April. The winery will be fully ready by October 2008 and will then release wines made from grape varieties grown in Sahayadri valley of Maharashtra.
Delhi takes a peek at the world — through a wine glass
New Delhi, March 24, 2008: Look, swirl, smell and taste: Though experts make wine tasting sound simple enough, the sessions at Shangri-La hotel’s Wine Club - the newest in the block — is not for the uninitiated.
Each sip is accompanied by a description of the wine, its region, the grapes used and the taste. And Delhi is lapping it up.
Started in January 2007, the club already has 32 members. But even so, the older clubs, The Delhi Wine Club and The Wine Society, started in 2002 and 2000, are thriving. The basic premise of these clubs is to educate guests about fine wines and encourage the habit of wine drinking.
Maharashtra days of wine and roses
Mumbai, March 26, 2008: At the Sula Vineyards in Nashik, five hours' drive from Mumbai, the atmos phere is festive.
Staff at India's second largest winemaker are preparing for their 10th annual harvest party in mid-March at a new amphitheatre in the vineyard, which lies in the some of the richest agricultural lands of the western state of Maharashtra.
"There will be bands and dancers. It's going to be very cool," says Rajeev Samant, the shaven-headed founder of Sula. "You can bring your blanket and sit out. Nowhere else in India can you do that in the middle of a vineyard."
Bilimoria's Cobra Beer hints at more acquisitions for beer and wine
New Delhi, March 24, 2008: Lord Karan Bilimoria's Cobra Beer is mulling at least two more acquisitions of breweries in India as part of plans to invest some $50 million in the country towards expansion and grab a 10 per cent market share.
"Two more breweries - one in Andhra Pradesh and another in Bangalore - are coming on line soon. These could either be franchise arrangements with existing breweries or acquisitions," Bilimoria said.
"Our aim is to grow the Cobra beer brand to 20 million cases annually from some 2.5 million cases now to grab a 10 per cent market share. We are also looking at a greenfield project," London-based Bilimoria told IANS.
Champagne Ind buys Australian winery
Mumbai, March 23, 2008: India's largest wine maker Champagne Indage has acquired Australian Vintage’s Loxton winery for Rs 225 crore. The acquisition of the winery would increase Champagne Indage’s total production capacity from 32 million litres (3.5 million cases) to 122 million litres (13.5 million cases) per year. The deal will also allow the company to enter wider price points within Australia as well as major markets of Australian wine such as the UK, Europe, US and India.
Ranjit S Chougule, managing director, Champagne Indage said, “The acquisition will drive greater value to key stakeholders including end consumers, and partners of Champagne Indage. With an existing market share of 75%, the purchase of Loxton is meant to be a part of our larger strategy of going global.”
India to witness three-fold increase in wine consumption
New Delhi, Mar 12, 2008: Wine consumption in India is set to treble by 2011 to touch 17 million litres per annum, according to a study conducted by UK-based International Wines and Spirits Records (IWSR).
As per the study, wine consumption in India stood at six million litres in 2006 and in the last four years, it has risen by over four times.
"Contrary to popular belief that only imported wines are mainly consumed, most wines consumed in the country is locally produced, accounting for 75 per cent of the total volume," wine exhibitor VinExpo Chairman Dominique Heriard Dubreuil told PTI.
Wine tipplers set to triple by 2011, on a high of retail distribution
New Delhi, Mar 12, 2008: Indians drank 66,000 hectoliltres or 8 million bottles of grape-based wines in 2006. And the consumption is expected to triple by 2011 to reach 188,000 hectolitres, according to a study released by Bordeaux (France) based Vinexpo and British Consultancy firm, The International Wines and Spirits Record (IWSR).
The wine market at the same time is expected to display a growth rate of 30% per annum. According to IWSR, in 2006, the consumption of other spirits in India increased by 24.5% to reach 111.68 million 9-litre cases. The market for the same is expected to grow to 148.15 million cases between 2006 and 2011.
Wine outperformed stocks over seven-year period
India, Mar 13, 2008: Investors in wine would have enjoyed a better return than those investing in Western stock markets over the last seven years, a study from London-based specialist Wine Asset Managers has shown.
Data from the London-based company shows that the average annualised return on an investment in fine wines would have stood at 16 per cent.
India wine currying world favour
Land known for spices rebrands itself as grower of quality vintages
Dodballapur, India, Mar 09, 2008: Ever since Indian growers of Thompson's seedless table grapes found themselves with an overabundance of fruit a few decades back, India has produced some very bad wine.
But in these rocky scrub hills outside Bangalore -- a region reminiscent of California's Napa Valley -- well-tended vineyards are now fragrantly heavy with more pedigreed grapes: sauvignon blanc, cabernet sauvignon and shiraz. All are destined for the most remarkable of spirits: really good Indian wine.
India's new status symbol: a nation hits the bottle
Delhi, Feb 12, 2008: As India's economy grows, the middle class is hunting for the latest ways to flaunt its affluence. Andrew Buncombe reports from Delhi on the growing popularity of the grape in a nation more famous for its tea.
By the flickering light of the restaurant's candles, suspicious particles seemed to be floating in the wine the waiter had just poured. It was hardly an auspicious start to the evening.
But in an instant came the explanation. There was nothing wrong with the wine; these were pure flakes of 24-carat gold added to the Californian chardonnay by the manufacturer simply for additional "wow factor". And it worked. The group of well-dressed men and women laughed and smiled and lifted their glasses towards the light, better to see the wine sparkle.
Head for India, not China, says brand guru
February 2008: Top brands are looking in the wrong direction if they view China as their long-term business expansion plan. That’s the opinion of Allan Biggar, head of European business development consultancy, All About Brands.
As UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown set off on a trade delegation to China, Biggar commented:
"China will have absolutely no qualms about quickly buying in everything it needs to build an infrastructure, society, design and manufacturing knowledge and capability base focused on a handful of its key business sectors and cities. Its plan is to enable it to sell even more to the West – and as soon as it has everything it needs, the door will slam and the current river of money will dry up. China will be a short-term source of cash, India is a long-term investment.
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