When Sumedh Singh Mandla, CEO of Grover Zampa Vineyards (for brevity delWine refers to them as GroverZ) called me a couple of months ago to invite me to the second edition of The Great Grover Wine Festival in Bangalore, and told me that the date was not confirmed but most likely it would be February 6, my first reaction was-why 6th? SulaFest had already announced 6th and 7th February for its 9th edition. (When I visited Sulafest the first time many years ago, and asked Cecilia Oldne, VP- Marketing the dates for the following year she told me it was yet undecided. My reaction had been spontaneous-what was there to think about! It should be always the first week-end of February! Harvest time and yet past the peak! Nice weather. The Fest was sure to become international one day. Let the world plan ahead without waiting for the date announcement. It may be a coincidence but since that time 6-7 years ago, the dates have always been the first weekend of February, I believe).
While stressing that the crowd and audience would be quite different at the two festivals, Sumedh said they were still discussing the date. In any case, he extracted a promise from me to attend even if the date was 6th since I could attend Sulafest on 7th February by flying from Bangalore to Mumbai and then drive to Nashik, directly to the festival.
I was perhaps the only one in India inconvenienced by their decision to hold it on the 6th since I had to visit both (I had to catch the 7:10 am flight from Bangalore!). Other journalists, at least, chose to attend one or the other. It was at the festival that I learnt that due to several constraints no other dates were feasible. When I met Kapil Grover at the Festival the immediate reaction of the founder Director of GroverZ was, ‘your point is very well taken. We couldn’t help it this year. But we shall make sure the dates don’t clash next year’. Incidentally, when I met Rajeev Samant at SulaFest the following evening, he knew I was coming from the Grover festival and as exchange of pleasantries he said, ‘Why choose the same days as us!’ Before saying ‘hi’ back, I said, ‘Kapil has promised next year onwards there would be no date clashes.’
Enough of the background-but not quite!
After Grover and Zampa merged, they decided to have an event at the Zampa winery in January 2013 in Nashik-the first year to have important friends, journalists and people from Mumbai meet the joint management of the company with Kapil Grover, Deepak Roy, Ravi Jain, and Neeraj Deorah present to receive guests. It has been a pleasure to be invited to all these events since then even though one wasn’t sure of their objective. The invitees were mostly from Mumbai, known to the management and who came for a good time, grape stomping, enjoying food from the Taj Gateway, shaking a leg to the beat of some popular band from Mumbai, perhaps buying a painting at the art exhibition at the event and driving back to Mumbai after a nice long lunch, to open a bottle of scotch and soda as the sundowners or perhaps a bottle of Bordeaux or a Chilean, Australian or Italian wine.
As Sumedh confided in me (not on oath of secrecy), the management realised that there was not attractive ROI in organising such an event. They even vacillated and considered having a wine festival in alternating years in Bangalore and Nashik- kind of like Vinexpo. They were surely aware of the Sulafest and its increasing influence in the Nashik region. They might even have considered the failed experiment by Sula’s neighbour, York a few years earlier.
And thus was born The Great Grover Wine Festival in Bangalore last year!
Successful Second Edition
If the concept of organising The Great Grover Wine Festival last year as an experiment was a result of some or all of these factors, this year’s event sealed the deal in favour of making it an annual event in Bangalore. There were over 2,000 people at the event organised again at the Bhartiya City, a self-contained housing and commercial complex, near Hebbal and perhaps bang in the center of the city and the winery. The venue had a lot of space making it feasible to easily accommodate over 5,000 people. If someone scoffs at the number which was merely 700-800 last year, consider that the maiden event of SulaFest had 300 people! That was also then a one-day event.
The comparisons between The Grover Festival and SulaFest are inevitable but unfair. But the perspective given here helps to understand the genesis of the GGWF. As Sumedh rightly pointed out, the target audience is different. Going forward, the experience with these two editions would be useful and of prime importance. But as the beaming Sumedh Singh Mandla confided, apparently after discussing with Kapil who was in a very relaxed mood, meeting anyone who wanted to spend a couple of minutes with him, that the success of the evening has ensured that The Great Grover Wine Festival would be a regular annual feature in the Bangalore Diary and the Calendar of Events.
Education and Arts
Grover Vineyards is the pioneer of the Indian wine industry. Kapil insists his father Late Kanwal Grover started planted experimental grapes all over India on the advice of their consultant Michel Rolland in 1981, a few years before Sham Chougule came into the frame. Certainly a king of winemaking in Karnataka, it is not difficult for them to corner the tagline ‘South India’s Largest Wine and Performing Arts Festival’. The family has been very Art-oriented. Even at Nashik, Art in some form or the other was a differentiating factor. A painting exhibition earlier in the day in the form of an Art Gallery at the GGWF reportedly attracted good crowds.
But what was noteworthy were the ‘Full House’ wine appreciation and tasting workshops earlier in the day. Tasting sessions led by Karishma Grover, the witty winemaker and UC Davies-educated daughter of Kapil Grover, and Sumedh Singh Mandla who has almost completed the WSET Diploma and is well-versed with all facets of winemaking and appreciation, besides marketing and production, were extremely popular and could become another USP of the Festival. Five sessions were conducted with a full house in fact, bursting from the seams. ‘But since we had to conduct the sessions when the band was not playing, because of the noise factor, we could not increase the number of sessions despite the demand. Free Registration and tastings made them even more popular,’ said Sumit Jaiswal, the National Head of Marketing, who is helping Sumedh cross the target of selling over 200,000 cases of wine in 2015-16 for GroverZ.
Wine education being the most important aspect of improving wine culture and consumption and in this case sale of Grover Zampa wines, the organisers must highlight this aspect more. They should perhaps consider charging a nominal additional amount of Rs. 100 to 200-even if the receipts were to be donated to some local charity. (Killing two birds with one stone-corporate social responsibility and getting only those seriously interested in learning more about wines). The entrance fee of Rs. 1250 to the Festival entitles those registering for the classes free access but a small extra amount paid for charity would not hurt anyone’s pocket.
Stomping and Strumming
Grape stomping to the sound of strumming guitars is apparently a very popular part of the Festival as they had learnt last year. One could see people stomping and swinging to the music which carried on till the end of the evening and attracted a big crowd. Lagori, Aabha Hanjura - Sufistication, Karthick Iyer Live, Ananth Menon & trio were big line-ups and very popular. So was the reported stand-up act by Vamsidhar Bhogaraju. I could hear Sabrina do a Karaoke Jig but was too preoccupied with many friends at the VIP stand to figure out how many people she was able to cajole to sing along. As we reached the last stages of the evening at around 9 pm, the beautiful live music was ringing in my ears- I didn’t honestly know it was being played by DJ Ivan who is apparently the most popular DJ in Bangalore. The young crowd apparently knew him as the floor was full of people dancing away with a glass of wine or beer in their hands- past the closing time of 10 pm.
Talking of beer, I am not sure of my own reaction to its presence. I may claim to be a messiah for wine but I am a general supporter of beer even though I don’t drink it. Affordable and with lower alcohol, it is an acceptable choice for youngsters and helps keep them away from hard liquor in their alcohol-formative years. But should a wine festival encourage beer at a wine festival? Sumedh seemed to be equally unsure. ‘We have one sponsor who has been selling beer. I wasn’t sure whether we should accept the sponsorship and allocate the space to beer or not. But on an experimental basis we allowed this. Let’s see what we do for next year,’ he shared his view.
Most people I met (and naturally they were wine lovers) were very happy with the organisation of the festival, turnabout and the ambience. But they wondered why there was so much beer floating around. In fact, I spotted youngsters carrying beer bottles and stomping the grapes! United Spirits with its base in Bangalore would surely love to be a co-sponsor if it were allowed to sell whisky, the license problem notwithstanding! One cannot ignore the fact that beer is a popular beverage. There was the same situation at the SulaFest the next day, where one could see hordes of plastic glasses full of beer or even pint bottles in hand.
There is one minor difference-SulaFest, as the name so aptly chosen by Rajeev Samant suggests, encompasses everything on earth-it’s a Fest and by Sula! And since Sula imports Asahi Beer, they have had reasons to promote it (though my divergent views on allowing other beer and liquor stands are well-known and not appreciated) along with Cointreau and Grants whiskey. Perhaps Grover should start importing beer (their plan to import wine has been considered but kept on the back burner for now) to justify the presence. Or drop ‘W’ from the GGWF!
Unlike SulaFest, pardon the comparison just one last time, Grover Festival is not held on the winery grounds or the vineyards. It would be nice to see the wine activities being promoted onsite. The off-site has been chosen surely for practical reasons. This not only differentiates it from other festival(s) including the earlier York Live, but the space available makes it a convenient venue for the next several years. The stands rented by wine accessories sellers and the non-wine product promoters were extremely popular and the activities in that portion of the festival have a huge potential for fresh ideas. Hopefully, the sponsorship at Bhartiya City has been sealed for several years. The developers ought to be happy that they are getting recognition-most taxi drivers didn’t know about it or how to get there!
The Great Grover Wine Festival has an immense potential-not only to promote its brand, wines and make it a profit center (the incredible number of sponsorships it managed to garner is a testimony to the trust the sponsors have placed on its success). It will become an important fun day with Grover Zampa wines (maybe a full weekend in the following years). Unless there is a similar clash of dates next year, I would love to visit the Festival again. Apart from the opportunity to taste the complete range of the latest vintage (this alone should be reason enough for wine lovers to attend the event), it was the number of old friends I met and the many new friends I made, that made it one of the most enjoyable and productive days this year.
To the continued success of The Great Grover Wine Festival I raise a toast and say, Cheers! Jai Ho!!
For the earlier related Articles, read:
Great Grover Wine Festival Gets Going
Great Grover Stomp 2014
The Great Grover Stomp in Nashik
Blog: Stomping the Great Grover
Subhash Arora |