Sula Vineyards acquires cooperative winery in Maharashtra

Mumbai: Indian producer of premium wines Sula Vineyards has announced the acquisition of India's first sparkling wine factory, and India's first wine nursery.

"As a part of our expansion plans, Sula recently bought Pimpane Co-operative India Ltd based 30km from Nashik. The 15-year old facility has been taken over in an open and transparent tender process and it will be restarted within three months for the 2007 crush, which entails tremendous amount of additional investment," announced Rajeev Samant, founder and managing director, Sula Vineyards.

The company is the second-largest wine producer in India, with total wine capacity 1.75 million litres, and the largest producer in the premium wine segment (wines priced above Rs300). Its Sauvignon Blanc 2006 has received a four out of a five-star rating in La Revue du Vin de France, the prestigious French magazine on wines.

The new acquisition will increase the company's production capacity to two million litres. Sula Vineyards plans to further invest over Rs10 crore, including Rs5 crore over two-and-half years in a 150-acre wine nursery at Nashik, set up with French collaboration. He said a captive nursery was essential to ensure that grape plantations are virus-free, ensure consistency in wine production and eventually lead to enhancing the quality of wines.

"In a major boost to wine industry, retailers are now allowed to sell wines in their stores and as a result wines should hit supermarkets soon." Sula has already tied up with Food Bazaar as the retail chain's preferred wine partner and is currently assisting the chain with the licensing process. "You will soon be able to walk into a supermarket and walk out with a bottle of Sula wine along with other groceries," he said.

In clearly a customer-friendly move, Sula recently switched over to capping it bottles with easier to open screw caps from the traditional corks, because as Samant says, "Ninety-nine per cent of Indian households don't own cork screws." Though screw caps involve higher investment per bottle, they provide an equally good seal. "Moreover, they are easy to open as you can just twist them off," he adds.

In order to cater to the growing demand, Sula recently acquired 500 acres of vineyard, taking its total acreage under ownership and contract farmers from 700 acres to 1200 acres. For the last three years, the wine industry was growing at a rate of 30 per cent with 25 per cent growth being expected every year for the next three years and Samant says Sula had already sold 90,000 cases till date, while exports had doubled in ythe last one year.

Maharashtra is expected to add 3,000 acres of wine grapes this year to deal with the increasing demand and an additional 4,000-5,000 acres are going to be required over the next five years.