Tropical vineyards put India on the wine map

What are you doing to build a wine industry in a country with no tradition of wine drinking and a climate unfavorable for viticulture?

In India, innovative producers have taken a range of approaches, from changing the wine-growing season to using kiwis instead of grapes and packaging wine in cans.

“When we started in 1997, no one knew what wine was,” recalls Rajeev Samant, founder of India’s Sula Vineyards.

“All liquor stores in India were called wine stores, so people thought wine meant liquor,” he says.

It wasn’t just a branding issue. Hurdle after hurdle had to be cleared to get Sula going.

It took Mr. Samant two years to obtain a state license to make wine from grapes.

Then he had to attract the attention of consumers who were not very interested in wine.

“India is not traditionally a country where wine is drunk – due to an earlier Prohibition period and higher prices compared to spirits like whiskey and brandy produced in the country.”

And then there’s the weather. The base of Sula is Nashik, Maharashtra where the climate is tropical. In March, April and May the temperature can easily exceed 40°C.

“Climate is a challenge and always will be,” says Mr. Samant.

Sula solved this by doing the opposite to the rest of the winemaking world – it grows its grapes in winter and then harvests them at winter’s end.

The latest technology has also contributed to this. Sula was the first Indian winery to use refrigerated stainless steel to store its wine.

“I realized that good tropical wines need to be chilled. It’s expensive, but for us it brings quality,” says Mr. Samant.

But persistence bought success. Sula now has 1,000 employees and annual sales of around Rs 5 billion (£55m; $62m).

It has just launched its first share sale, raising nearly 10 billion rupees (£98 million; $121 million) in the process.

In addition, hundreds of thousands of people visit the vineyard in Nashik every year.

Later this year, Sula plans to sell shares on the stock exchange for the first time. It will be an opportunity to gauge what investors think of the prospects for the Indian wine market.

There are currently about 110 wineries producing wine and fruit wines in India.

The Indian government aims to increase this number. It has a heavy duty on imported wine and foreign companies are encouraged to invest in India.

India’s third largest winemaker is the result of an international collaboration.

In 2006, Secci brothers (Alessio and Andrea) from Italy joined forces with Mohite Patil brothers (Arjun and Ranjit) from Maharashtra and Sekhri brothers from Delhi (Kapil and Gaurav).

Together they formed Fratelli Wines.

“Wineries in India don’t follow rules or traditions as strictly as older wine-growing countries. Instead, India follows the New World winemaking style, which is more experimental and technologically oriented,” says Jayanth Bharathi of Fratelli Wines.

His latest offering, Wine in a Can, would definitely give a traditional winemaker the chills. Mr Bharathi says it will appeal to younger drinkers and make Fratelli’s wines “accessible and easy-going”.

More technology of business:

He is confident that this innovation will pay off.

“With an increasingly urban population, wine consumption is becoming a part of the cultural zeitgeist and with the offering of quality Indian wines, there is a very good chance for India to make its mark on the world wine map.”

Since the Indian climate is generally not suitable for grapes, some entrepreneurs are turning to fruit wines.

Arunachal Pradesh is a state in the extreme northeast of India. The lower-lying parts of the region have a subtropical climate and kiwis, pears, peaches and plums thrive there.

But poor marketing, transportation and storage means many of these fruits go to waste.

In 2017, Tage Rita decided to do something about it. She began making wine from kiwis, an important crop in her valley.

It’s called Naara Aaba, has an alcohol content of 13% and became India’s first organic wine made from kiwis.

“I wanted to revitalize the local farming community by sourcing their crops, making wines from them and also preserving the healthy values ​​of the exotic fruit,” says Ms. Aaba.

She is also proud of the boost the winery has given her local economy.

“The farmers of the valley have benefited enormously from the sale of their products. It has created income opportunities for farmers and jobs for unemployed youth,” she says.

Similar to wine, kiwi wine is made from grapes. Ripe fruits are juiced and fermented, which takes three to four months to produce a batch of wine. Some products are aged for another four or five months before bottling.

Naara Aaba produces around 50,000 bottles of wine a year, including wine made from peaches, plums and pears.

“The advantage with fruit wines is that they take much less time to mature. Fruit wines are also lighter and fruitier than grape wines, which are easier for new wine drinkers,” says Ms. Aaba.

“The social and cultural taboo around alcoholic beverages is slowly breaking down,” said Subhash Arora, founder of the Indian Wine Academy, which promotes the industry.

While challenges remain, the outlook is bright, he says.

“It is difficult for us to become a global player as we lack good weather and soil to grow the right crops to make excellent wines, but we are reaching a milestone where Indians like Indian-made wines.”