Homegrown Indus Wines steadily makes its mark

College friends Abhijit Kabir and Sachin Khanolkar knew nothing about making or selling wines. Graduates from the JJ College of Architecture, they researched the domestic food and beverage industry for two years before starting out with a modest investment of Rs 5 crore to launch Indus Wines.

"In India, wine has recently stepped out of the snob circle to the affluent middle classes," notes Kabir. Sales of wine tripled to 1.2 million cases last year even though India is a whisky-drinking nation.

It was in February 2006 that the first-generation entrepreneurs went in for their first grape crushing. "When the wines were ready, no distributor was ready to distribute them," says Violet D'Souza, another friend and HR expert, who quit her cushy job to jumpstart Indus Wines.

Undeterred, the trio briefly contemplated distributing the wines themselves to almost 580 retail outlets in Mumbai but finally settled for a single distributor.

Today, the company's products are available at hotels like the JW Marriott, up-market restaurants, clubs and across 120 retail outlets in Mumbai.

On the anvil are plans to extend the business to cities like Delhi, Chandigarh, Pune, Bangalore and Goa, among others, by the end of the year.

The young entrepreneurs are also mulling retail ventures like opening wine boutiques and bars in metros such as Mumbai. But a shortage of funds may keep the plans on paper for a while. "We hope to break even in about five years and the plan to open wine boutiques is on top of the mind," D'Souza admits.

To capture volumes, Indus Wines will follow what its competitors UB Wines, Sula, Indage and Grover wines have already started doing. "Smaller bottles and affordable wines at Rs 200 are on the anvil. By September this year, we should have a cheaper wine that will help us get volumes if not profit," states Kabir.

"We figured if Indus Wines had to break through the clutter in the domestic wine market, it had to get people who were subject experts," says

D'Souza. So the company engaged celebrated winemaker John Worontschak and Australian viticulturist Richard Smart as consultants. And Maharashtra