This Christmas, if you want to raise a toast with wine that's, well, cheap. The Indage group have just launched a new brand called Vino available in the range of Rs 90-100 for 750 ml.
The wine comes in a PET bottle with a screw cap, and is already on the shelves in Maharashtra. The Delhi debut is likely soon and the brand is available in most parts of the country.
The breaching of the Rs 100 barrier is this year's big news. Here, after all, is genuine wine, fermented and all, not the distilled, artificially flavoured spirit that goes under trade names like Belo.
The enthusiasts are guarded -- it is, after all, the antithesis of the snobbery and aspiration wine conventionally stands for.
The critics are clamouring -- table grapes, ugh! And the company itself is hugely optimistic: "By 2007, we hope to be the first millionaire case company not just in India but in this entire region," says Indage's Santosh Verma.
Rajeev Singhal, India representative of Sopexa, the body promoting French wine internationally, is cautious because he believes quality will be compromised.
Singhal, and indeed a majority of "serious" wine drinkers, believe that the trick is to come up with that "reasonable" amount a person will be willing to pay for a decent enough wine in attractive packaging.
The Indian wine market is pegged at 600,000 cases annually and grew by 30 per cent last year. While Indage is looking to drive the growth further with one of its focuses on affordability, main rivals, Sula and Grover Vineyards, are on a different track.
Grover has always looked at the premium segment, content with fewer labels in its portfolio, but always quality conscious. Sula, on the other hand, was one of the first wine companies to look at the issue of affordability.
When it launched its Madera brand a couple of years ago, it was the only wine available under Rs 200 and proved to be a bestseller. Interestingly, this year, the company has upped the price for a bottle of Madera (now called Madera Select and ostensibly a different product) in the range of Rs 230-270.
Samant says the company is looking at the premium and mid-sections where there is scope to expand. "While wine can be made using table grape, we will not do that," founder Rajeev Samant insists.
Indage defends doubts as to Vino's quality. The grapes that go into the wine are a mix of table and "Indian" but, more importantly, according to Verma, price has been lowered because of other cost-saving practices: "A glass bottle costs Rs 12, labels another Rs 2-3, cartons are more expensive, there are transport breakages, storage is a problem..."
Besides, the company has its strategy clear. "In traditional markets like Europe and Australia, convenience and culture drive sales. But India is different, here it is important to offer value for money. Nowhere are whiskies as cheap as they are in India; it is the same route we want to take for wine."