Wine and our society

THE WINE CLUB

That Indian society intrigues most observers from overseas is also well known: we're a multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-linguistic, multi-class and pretty much multi- everything collection of people who constantly surprise everyone else by continuing to function as a single country. Part of that multilateralism spills over into how wine is seen and consumed.

I have three insights to offer on the phenomenon:

First off, wine is still essentially a product for the English-speaking urban elite (of the sort who might be reading this article) and has a consumer universe of not more than 5 per cent of the population. However, that's not a bad thing at all, since this exclusivity is a key reason why wine is seen as aspirational and "high society" and tends to occupy a far larger amount of mindspace than what the size of the industry warrants.

Of course, with growing disposable incomes and changing lifestyles more people are able to afford the "better things of life" and one looks forward to decent quality wines being quaffed by more people everywhere.

Next, while total wine consumption in India was about two million cases in 2007 and grew 30 per cent over 2006, this is still a drop in the wine ocean: world consumption last year was 2.75 billion cases, and even the Chinese put away some 140 million cases (although a lot of that was barely wine, being an ad-mix concoction of fortified grape juice