The 2-day exhibition had a distinct look of multitudes of pubs and bars, where bartenders were shaking away the mixed liquor to make impressive cocktails. The mini-skirted pretty women enticed the young and not-so-young to come to their stands.
Their nice legs were outdone only by the cabernet and shiraz reserve Reveilo wines of Vintage Wines. A few of the other wine stands one could visit were- Zampa Wines, Indage, Vinsura were stand alone Indian wine producers. UB Vintners and Diageo were satisfied with a mere display of Nilaya and Four Seasons.
As Abhay Khewadkar, Chief Winemaker of UB wines finally made me understand, the delay of their Four Seasons launch has been due to their decision to wait and market wine fermented only in their own winery as the Four Seasons. It was almost ready to be brought to the world. However, Nilaya's stand is rather perplexing. While there was a constant flow of traffic, tasting their liquor concoctions, I was told the wine was for display only, despite the fact that if has been launched already.
Perhaps, it sums up the whole story of wine consumption being a measly 1.2 million cases when the liquor is over 150 million cases. Perhaps, it demonstrated that Diageo is not really interested in promoting Indian wines at this stage but concentrate more on quality instead. Only the time will tell.
Kingfisher Bohemia wines were tucked away in a glamorous corner with the glam girls pouring the wine crafted for beer drinkers. It would be interesting to watch whether the wine adds significantly to the top line of Kingfisher Breweries division or causes a dent into the image of South African wines which are making a good impression on the Indian palate for the last couple of years.
Bohemia might be closer to the beer price than most other imports but it may still have to compete with the likes of the half-priced, in-house Zinzi one of whose variants apparently won a Seal-of-Approval at the India Wine Challenge last week. There are many other better options of Madeira, Sante and even Riviera available in the market, the strength and reach of the brand Kingfisher notwithstanding.
Aspri Spirits, which has got a shot in its wine arm recently with the infusion of Sumedh Mandla was quite focussed on the De Bortoli Australian wines, which have made it a habit of winning awards in the India Wine Challenge. Their Export Marketing Manager, the charming Nikki Palun was on hand to affirm that DB is on the correction path of lower alcohol and lesser oak in their otherwise pleasant wines.
There were several conferences related to beer and liquor. Conferences on wine also had some interesting topics where Abhay Khewadkar, Business Head and Chief Winemaker of UB spoke about the Indian wine industry.
Subhash Arora, President of Indian Wine Academy talked about the challenges facing the growth of wine consumption highlighted the confusing and inconsistent government policies ahead of taxes which are a major factor. Wine education, cultural problems, advertisement factors were some of the other points touched by him.
Craig Wedge, the wine consultant for the Marriott group focussed on the wine buying strategy of Marriott. He emphasised that price was not the basic factor in his selection of wines. The quality, story to tell and the ability to move from the store to the glass were important factors. Pricing at 45% of the beverage costs, the Marriott has declared that it aspires to be the best wine destination hotel in India and Craig is focussing just on how to do it.
Another interesting talk was given on the first day by the Ad Guru Prahlad Kakkar on the advertising paradigm for the alcohol industry. Not in favour of surrogate advertising which he feels can be taken negatively by the consumers due to a touch of obviously illegality and sometimes a wrong message going to the drinker, he sees nothing wrong in advertising on the Net which is difficult to monitor by the government, in most situations. 'When the government has given the license to produce alcohol, why should they not have the elbow room to market this lifestyle product?' he wondered while chatting with delWine afterwards.
The event appeared to be an important event for the beer and liquor industry and from the glazed looks on the faces of the visitors a successful 2-day affair.
Subhash Arora |