Diageo India is quite serious about Mount
View winery, owned by renowned viticulturist Hambir
Phadtare who has been a viticulturist since the early
eighties. He started a vineyard in 1997 and has been
a supplier to leading wineries including Sula. He set
up Mount View about three years back.
Renaissance, a relatively newcomer has its facility
at Ozar near Nashik and its wines have been well received
by the market. This winery also has had suitors like
Vijay Mallya's United Spirits for co-operation. United
has now announced its plans to set up a 3.5 million
litre capacity winery with Sharad Pawar's family in
Baramati District, near Pune.
As reported in delWine earlier, Diageo has been scouting
for a presence in India's fast-growing wine market.
It had even hired Sula's Marketing head and Rajeev Samant's
right hand man, Adrian Pinto to develop the domestic
business. Their earlier wooing of Sula had failed. Rajeev
had denied any alliance in an exclusive interview with
delWine though he did admit that a few preliminary meetings
were held. Soon after, Adrian had left Sula and joined
Diageo.
The company is more cautious in making any statements
this time and would only reiterate its interest in producing
Indian wines and that it was in talks with many wineries
in Nashik, India 's de facto wine capital.
Says Diageo India managing director Asif Adil: "We
plan to enter into a partnership with a winery in Nashik
to market a domestic label."
No agreement has been inked with any winery yet, though.
This step will mark the entry of UK-based maker of Johnnie
Walker and Smirnoff, into the emerging domestic wine
market.
Diageo is unlikely to pick up stake in a winery though.
It would roll out India specific labels through a bottling
arrangement only.
Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com
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