United Spirits's wine subsidiary, Four Seasons, may offer 5-10 per cent stake to grape farmers around its winery in Baramati in Maharashtra. Nearly 800 farmers have shown interest in buying a stake in the company.
United Spirits is the country's largest spirits firm and part of the UB Group.
The discussions with the farmers are at an initial stage. Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar's family holds over 26 per cent stake in the company. The company is planning to offer 500 shares for each acre of land owned by grape growers. "We have seen tremendous response from grape growers for the scheme. We hope to extend our grape cultivation to over 2,000 acres in the next few years," said Abhay Kewadkar, chief wine maker and director of Four Seasons.
Four Seasons has been set up to produce and market Indian wines. The company is setting up a winery in Baramati where it has around 500 acres of vineyard. In the next three years, it is looking at extending grape cultivation to 2,000 acres within a 50 km range of its plant. The installed wine making of the Baramati plant is 0.2 million cases per annum, which will be scaled up to one million cases in the next three to four years.
The company has already invested Rs 40 crore in the Baramati plant and a further Rs 60 crore will be invested in the next three years, said Kewadkar. After launching Zinzi, its entry-level white and red wine, the company is looking at launching more home-grown labels. It will launch four new labels in the premium category, priced between Rs 400 and Rs 550, in the coming months followed by 6 other brands by mid-2009.
United Vintners, United Spirits' other wine subsidiary which imports and markets wines, offers nearly 40 labels from countries such as South Africa, New Zealand, Portugal and Australia. It is looking at including wines from other geographies to its portfolio in the coming months, said officials from the company, on the sidelines of the Loire Valley Food and Wine festival organised by Bouvet-Ladubay and ITC Welcomgroup.