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only has the sparkling wine market in India been growing at a faster pace
since the arrival of Chandon in 2013, it has added colours and fashion
to the bottle labels in order to attract consumers with Chandon introducing
couple of new bottle labels designed by the fashion designer, Manish
Malhotra who is known for designing clothes for Bollywood stars
and celebrities and brings further sparkle to this segment. The labels
will be available in the market in the first week of October, before Diwali
at Rs. 1450 each. But these are part of a festive edition and not only
targeted only for Diwali.
‘I have created two distinct designs on the bottles. While one
is luxurious gold motifs over a midnight sky background reminiscent of
the night sky during Diwali and depicts the prints on a sherwani, the
other celebrates the sari with a spritz of pink and rose gold-stemmed
floral draping the bottle. In keeping with Chandon’s French legacy,
my prime inspiration was the gardens at the Palace of Versailles. This
was further filtered in the context of Indian celebrations,’ says
the master couturier.
Stéphane de Meurville, the relatively new MD
of Moet Hennessy India says, “We all know about India’s vibrant
festivities, celebrations at Diwali and weddings and of course Bollywood
films. Manish beautifully stitches these together for Chandon.”
His sentiments are echoed by Sophia Sinha, Senior Marketing
Manager who says, “For us it is the coming together of two like-minded
brands which represent an evolving India that speaks of an international
lifestyle, yet tied into Indian tradition just  like these two limited
edition bottles.”
Manish
Malhotra adds, ‘I truly believe that fashion, food and drink
are significant indicators of a culture. In India, the coming together
of both is an essential part of our festivals, weddings and other celebrations.
So, when Chandon reached out to me to create these bottles, I was excited
to work with
a new canvas.’
Following Sula’s footsteps
The credit for interesting motifs on sparkling wine bottles really goes
to the industry leader Sula and especially the founder CEO Rajeev Samant
who had been astutely watching the entry of Chandon and the increasing
competition and introduced the first bottle with colourful motifs of small
paisley in 2015 when Sula introduced the new label Sula Tropicale Brut
with full fanfare in Mumbai.
Giving an insight to the genesis, Rajeev says, ‘I suddenly realised
we had a great in-house designer team and a great procurement team so
why not delight our consumers with interesting designs on the bottle.’
My only brief to the team was to come out with designs using Paisley and
lots of celebratory Indian colours.’ The design team in Mumbai,
headed by Sunil  Deshpande came out with a few designs
within a week. Making a few alterations like reducing the size of the
Paisley, we were ready with the Tropicale and the Diwali season. This
was a huge success and received very well by our consumers and helped
us increase sales even beyond our imagination.
Carrying
forward with the idea for Holi, I sat with Sunil and his team again and
this time told them to add more vibrant colours representative of Holi.
Again, it was a tremendous success. When we came out with the limited
edition of Blanc de Blanc Brut (Chardonnay) last year, I had black and
gold in mind because of the richness and elegance that the design and
the liquid inside the bottle signified. We have a very limited quantity
but the customers and we find the bottle very impressive.’
‘We have our own equipment for ‘sleeving’. That makes
it easier and quicker for us to incorporate the design change on the bottle’,
says Rajeev adding,’ a small point in favour of changing sleeves
in our favour in Maharashtra is that this does not constitute a label
change and thus enables us to make a change as and when we want it’
He stress though that they would restrict the change to one or two labels
a year only. Currently Tropicale Brut and Classic Brute are available
in the colourful designs; the classic label has also not been discarded
as many conventional markets are happier with it.
Grover Zampa Vineyards (GZV)
Sparkling wine category is an exciting segment for the 25-year old Grover
Zampa Vineyards. Soiree Brut and Brut Rose' sparkling wines are
produced at their Nashik winery but Bangalore winery has also starting
producing bubblies in 2016-17 to meet demand.
They added last year, Magnifique Soiree Brut and Brut
Rose' to the portfolio. This bottle has black colour sleeve with attractive
multi-colour floral designs
and motifs wrapped seamlessly around the bottle. According to Sumedh
Singh Mandla, CEO of GVZ their sales in this segment jumped 59
% during last fiscal year; they are eyeing over 30% growth in the current
fiscal year.
GZV plans to release a new sparkling wine named Auriga-designed
to target groups for special occasions including wedding segment during
its celebratory year. The innovative packaging will be revealed by GVZ
when fully conceptualized but will appeal to a larger Indian and international
audience, according to Mandla.
Kapil Sekhri, Director of Fratelli Winery
says they have no plans to introduce such labels. York Winery
whose facilities were used by Chandon in the initial couple of vintages
and which then started producing sparkling wines too, recently introducing
Rose Brut, has classic labels (the Rose label is in fact very elegant).
Says Kailash Gurnani, the winemaker and partner of York,
‘As of now we do not have any plans to introduce designer or festive
bottles. Our focus lies on making a consistent product year on year. We
have spent a fair amount of time in coming up with a premium looking bottle
with a timeless design. People have responded well to it and our sparkling
wine is growing in sales. For the time being we do not feel the need to
change anything.’
From all accounts it appears the Sparkling wine segment is booming, fuelled
by Chandon which had declared at the Launch 4 years ago that it would
be their endeavour to expand the market rather than eat into the existing
market. With their competitiors taking a note of the changed scenario
and the furious competition, the market for high quality wines with second
fermentation in the bottle (Méthode Traditionelle) may be flirting
with the 100,000-case mark by the year end or during the next year.
And Manish Malhotra and Chandon may take a bow for contributing to the
growth of this segment.
Subhash Arora
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