Winery In India

Melbourne is quite a lovely and modern city, with some terrific fine-dining places, and an ambience as good as any — what with the Yarra River meandering lazily through the city en route to the sea, a carefully-maintained green cover (quite a lot of the trees lining the roads are less than 20 years old), and several outstanding (and clean!) public parks.

I was there as a guest of Tourism Victoria to participate in the annual Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, a 10-day extravaganza showcasing some of the best that the city has to offer.

The festivities started on March 4 with “The Longest Lunch in The World” — referring to the length of the table, which in the case of Melbourne was 307 meters, almost the height of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. This was a sit-down pre-plated four-course affair conceived by celebrity chef Gabriel Gate for over 1,000 people, with the 4 wines (a bubbly, a white, a Rose’, and a red) from the nearby Yering Station winery.

I later visited Yering Station – a beautiful, modern setup, with a gourmet fine-dining restaurant and one of the best views of the valley. For me the best part of Melbourne is its easy accessibility to wineries: Victoria state has some 850 at last count, the nearest winery being barely 45 minutes from the city centre. The Yarra Valley is probably the best-known wine area of the state, and is simply beautiful: acres of gently-sloping meadows and vineyards, dotted here and there by wineries, dairy farms, and resorts.

Wining in Melbourne - Business Standard

Bulli No. 1 to Take Sabb...

In the difficult wine scenario in India, it is not only the customs duties and unreasonable excise duties in states like Delhi, that are irksome and a bottleneck in spreading the wine culture, but the label registration charges and the excise licensing costs are particularly harsh for small importers and  producers, constraining the availability of several good value for money wines too.

Take as an example Delhi- the Indian Capital that aspires to become a world class city before the Commonwealth Games in October. Before making the first sale, the wine importer has to procure an excise license costing Rs.0.5 million (US $11,000) annually-which normally translates into a sales period of around 11 months anyway. For example, most importers have still not got the excise license for this year (2010-11)-mercifully; the department had extended the same for 15 days into April this year.

Full Story: Blog: Shed a Few Tears for the Small Guy - Indian Wine Academy

Bulli No. 1 to Take Sabb...

The wines were formally launched by Mr. Augusto Giancitti- Italian Trade commissioner & Mr. Bernard Prevette- Deputy Trade Commissioner in the presence of many people from the industry and other invitees that included members of our Club.

Said Yatin Patil, Managing Director of Vintage Wines,’ we had imported the root stocks from a well-known nursery in North East Italy in 2006, and were the first Indian winery to do so. The first vintage has recently been released. In fact, last month when Ambrosia magazine organised a wine tasting dinner at JW Marriott to welcome the duo of Anja Cheriakova and Georges Janssens on a ‘Wine without Frontiers’ world tour, the members of the Terroir One were really enjoyed tasting these wines. So it was a pleasure to have a more focused opportunity to taste these ‘Italian wines’ from the Indian producer.

Full Story: Italian Varietals debut with Vintage Wines - Indian Wine Academy

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Full Story: Chef Vikram Vij's White Lamb Curry - Globe and Mail

‘Mantra is produced by award winning York Winery in the heart of India and is family- owned wine label,’ said the founder Ravi Gurnani introducing the wines. ‘With Mantra wines, we are presenting the best that the Indian terroir has to offer’, he added while I was sipping and swirling the fruity Chenin Blanc..

York Winery has a New World approach to winemaking and is aiming to market it as one of the best premium wines coming out of India. Kato Enterprises is the main importer and distributor for Mantra in the UK.

I talked to Richard Moyse, Sales Director, Melissa Ellis and the Marketing Manager, Sanjay Sail about the wines and their marketing plans. The message was clear- “we are delighted and excited to have become the exclusive UK importers for Mantra wines”.  They are looking to build the Mantra wine brand to be the best wine in the UK.

Full Story: York Winery's Mantra for UK Export - Indian Wine Academy