Looking for a fill

Wine, they say, reflects society and its mores. As documented, societal mores in India have changed beyond recognition in recent years. Rapid economic growth has led to a proliferation of the well-heeled and the well-travelled. The reflection of that change is being seen in the changing consumption of alcoholic drinks.

In India, buying liquor can be a disconcerting experience. It involves jostling with the multitude and shouting to attract the attention of the man at the counter, who would happily thrust any number of bottles in your hand without bothering with how you would hold or carry them.

Slowly, change has begun to set in. Supermarkets, themselves a new, raging phenomenon, are beginning to stock wine.

Recently, a woman reporter of Business Standard, looking to capture the new methods of selling wine, actually managed to rummage through the shelves at Lakeforest Wines, a dedicated store, in Gurgaon, helped by a polite, albeit not very well-informed, attendant.

It has helped that in July last year, prompted by complaints from the European Union and the United States to the World Trade Organisation, India reduced tariffs on imported liquor, potentially making a shiraz from Coonnawarra, Australia, for instance, as affordable as a product of an Indian vineyard.

Tariffs must be capped at 150 per cent now, down from rates that were as high as 550 per cent.

Earlier, when it came to offering drinks, what mattered was which whisky you were serving. The size of the wine market in the country remains minuscule, but is growing twice as fast as India-made foreign liquor.

These days wine is served at weddings and business meetings. Many would be able to point out Bordeaux on the world map. Wine clubs have sprouted and wine tasting is fast becoming a regular on the social calendar. Heck! Even journalistic parties have moved on from the India-made Old Monk.

It's IPL, again!
In a sense, the Indian Premier League, whose widespread impact on cricket is still being assessed, also marked a dramatic "coming out" of wine when it was served to spectators at the tournament's inaugural match in Bangalore on April 18. That was just two months after United Spirits Ltd, or USL, the flagship of Vijay Mallya's UB Group, which includes the airline Kingfisher and IPL's Bangalore franchise, turned its attention to expanding the wine business in India.

For long, the company had abstained from wine, focusing on beer and whisky, where it is the runaway market leader.

However, in February, it uncorked a plunge into wine with the launch of Zinzi, targeted at the youth and novice drinkers. The next five years will see the company sinking Rs 100 crore in this segment.

Of this, about Rs 80 crore will go into USL's subsidiary, Four Seasons Wines Ltd. USL owns 51 per cent equity in Four Seasons Wines while the farmers of Maharashtra's Baramati region own the rest.

Four Seasons Wines will roll out six varietals: Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Zinfandel & Blush with the target of 1 million cases when the winery reaches full capacity. Also on the cards are oak barreled & sparkling wines, which are expected to be launched later this year and next year.

"The wine market's base in India is small