The six varietals to be offered are Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Blush. Actually, Chardonnay has not been a very popular grape so far because of the difficult climatic conditions but of late, it has been added to the list, after Vintage Wines achieved reasonable success with the grape.
While there have already been a few cases of marketers buying grapes or the wine made under their own supervision and selling their own labels with their own marketing strategy- Good Earth Winery, Associate Wines and a few other labels in Nashik and Bangalore have adopted this route with varied amount of success, this appears to be the first instance where a retailer has decided to buy wine from the wineries and market under own label.
This could turn out to be a cropper or optimistically speaking another way of expanding the retail market with the own private label, as is quite implicit in this strategy. With organised retail growing fast, this channel will offer a great scope for expansion and one hopes the quality is good and the objective is to expand the market and follow the example of Goan ‘Ports’ and make it a short term remunerative strategy.
In Goa, it is a common practice for a ‘Port’ producer to sell the product to the retailer in the buyer’s private label. Says, Mario Sequeira, partner of Goa based Tonia Winery, one of the two biggest ‘Port’ producers in Goa, ‘the producer may perhaps supply the wine at around Rs.70 a bottle to a retailer who picks up good volumes. Then he sells it further to the unsuspecting out-of-state tourist (the biggest consumer of this product) at Rs.100-Rs. 130 by convincing him that this is the best label available in the market- certainly better than what others are selling.’
The retailer for Mokssh has tried to leapfrog by inviting the famous Bollywood superstar Sanjay Dutt for the launch party. Although this approach may not have a good return of investment over the long term, it has created some buzz and he may be able to build on it. Sanjay Dutt claimed that he had visited the venue since he had already made the commitment
under their own supervision Initially the wine will be available exclusively in Living Liquidz Stores, but later will be available in all hotels and restaurants, according to the owners. Sanjay Dutt who has apparently given up drinking for certain reasons may not be the right person to tell you if the wine is good enough to get you into the state of Nirvana but you might want to try it and decide for yourself. It one goes by the Tasting Notes of the producer, the wines promise to be robust and sweet.
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