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Photo By:: Adil Arora
 Mario Sequeira, the Don of Goan Port wines, who was in Delhi last week has announced his aggressive intentions by coming to a market which has been practically closed for the new Indian wine producers because of high annual registration charges of Rs. 500,000 for the excise license and Rs.50, 000 for each label registration, despite the claimed efforts of the Ministry of Food Processing Industries.
In an informal chat with delWine, Mario expressed his frustration and reservation about the heavy entry charges of Rs.650,000 (3 labels)- the tariff-cum-non-tariff barrier, but said, ‘as you know Delhi is an important market and we cannot afford to ignore it, especially since we want to have a pan-India presence,’ implying that he is in it for the long haul.
Mario is not new to the wine business. He sold last year a total of around 100,000 cases of wine, never mind that most of them were filled with port type wine- the local fortified wine made from indigenous grapes. This year he is confident of crossing 150,000 cases (his conservative estimate), indicating the growth of this segment. Of course, he might be benefitting from his competitior Vinicola (Costa & Co) in Margao in Goa, which is going through some family problems and is not in a position to compete aggressively, at least not for now.
Importing a small amount of bulk wine from Portugal, Mario sold around 6-8,000 cases of domestic wine last year and is targeting 15,000-20,000 this year. Unwilling to comment on projected sales in Delhi this year, all he says is he is here to stay!
‘Getting the excise license is not an easy job even if you can afford to pay the license fee somehow,’ more with a sense of achievement, now that he has obtained the license for his winery-a sister concern of Tonia Agencies through which he has been already selling wines. ‘Not only do we have to give an undertaking that we are the lowest priced in Delhi, they actually check our actual prices in various markets. They also came from Delhi and visited my winery in Goa,’ he says,' adding that the Delhi excise people were very co-operative.
Initially, he has brought only three staple variants, Cabernet, Shiraz and Chenin Blanc, priced around Rs.500, using Sula as the benchmark. Wines are made from the grapes sourced in Maharashtra and are already being sold in Maharashtra and Goa.
Springfield Winery is a division of Springfields (India) Distilleries which was established in 1997 and has been making Goa Classic red and white wines. It has been importing bulk wines from Portugal and Italy also and bottling them here in India. |