Wineries In India

Indian wine makers are now demanding their rightful place in a world so far dominated by wineries from France, South Africa, Australia and California.

For the first time in the 30-year history of the London International Wine Fair (LIWF) that ended on Thursday, the British got a taste of the red, white, rosé and sparkling wines from eight of India’s best wine markers under one roof — “Wines of India”.

The mood in pavilion 40D was anything but sober — only partly explained by the tasting sessions. Visitors, experts and amateurs alike, expressed surprise at the distance Indian wine-makers have travelled in terms of quality and taste.

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Champagne Indage, as the company was known for the better part of its existence, may not have made wines that would become a collector’s prized possession or fetch eye-popping amounts at auctions of vintage wines. In fact, it can safely be said that the company was never in the business of making vintage wines – wines that would last not just a few years but maybe even a few generations. That’s an art honed to the level of a science by Europe’s vineyards. What it did was to probably bust the myth that wines could not be made in a tropical country like India, where apart from the challenge of the weather, there was also the challenge of the (in)famed Indian palate that preferred ‘hard’ drinks that gave a ‘kick’. Wine was wishy-washy, wussy and womanish, according to hardened palates. Without overtly planning to do so, Champagne Indage (now called Indage Vintners) changed all that and even inspired others to get into the business of wine making – today there are over 50 big and small wine producers and wineries in India, most of them in Maharashtra.

The company, which made its first overseas acquisition when it bought Australia’s Thachi Wines for Australian $ 15 million in early 2007 (a company thrice its size in terms of production capacity), set its sights on having a complete portfolio of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. That included a planned acquisition of a Europe based vodka brand, the buy-out of UK’s Darlington Wines, a wine supplier and a planned entry into the fruit juices and mineral water segment. Did the company, like many others around the globe, get caught in the all-izz-well syndrome of the boom times? That could well be the case, as it struggles with what can be termed as its last lifeline to stay afloat – the stay order on its winding up granted by the Mumbai High Court for 15 days. If that happens, the writer of this blog – a teetotaller to boot – will perhaps say cheers with a bottle of Indage’s finest MDP.

The much hyped Marquise de Pompadour or MDP as it came to be known in trade circles, evokes an equal amount of awe and derision, depending on just what kind of a wine buff are you. Today, as Indage Vintners – the makers of MDP – battle it out in the courts to prevent creditors from winding up the company and probably liquidating their holdings, there is perhaps a certain bit of curiosity, tinged maybe with a dash of tragic romanticism. Curiosity at how things went so horribly wrong at India’s first branded wine maker that just a couple of years back was cruising along to become a global player in the wine making and selling business. Did it grow too fast, through its sundry acquisitions, ending up stretching its balance sheet beyond breaking point? Maybe.

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His is an ‘oranges to wines’ story. It all began in the  microbiology lab, while Shaw was pursuing his Bachelors at Pune University. He was asked by his teacher to work on a project that involved making wines from oranges. “That was perhaps the only winemaking I had done before joining this company,” says the 39-year-old winemaker.

The wine industry in India is still in the nascent stage. It started around 20 years ago but has evolved only in the past seven to eight years. There are about 70 small and big wineries in India with most of them based in Maharashtra. The wine market has grown by nearly 25 per cent in the last two to three years and is expected to grow at about 20 per cent in the next five years. Wine consumption is growing rapidly though India currently has an annual per capita consumption of only 10ml (compared to Italy’s 54 litres). This could easily rise to 50ml within the next decade and that would mean an industry five times the size it is today. What is required is good quality wine, not mediocre wine in large quantities. As a result, the number of jobs in the industry is bound to rise in the next few years, with a possible requirement of at least 50-100 trained personnel a year.

Before joining Sula Vineyards in Nasik, Shaw had completed his BSc in microbiology, an MSc in Biotechnology and an MBA in marketing. A newspaper advertisement in October 1999 inviting applications for the post of assistant winemaker prompted him to shoot off his resume to Sula. “Nobody knew about winemaking in India then. It was a new turf for me and the company. A consultant from California was flown in to train us,” he says. Shaw adds that within a year, he was sent to the Michel-Schlumberger winery in Sonoma County’s Dry Creek Valley in California for a harvest internship to get hands-on experience.

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