Italian experts to advise local vintners

The next time you reach out for a bottle of Indian wine to wash down your Saturday lunch, it may just taste better. Italians are coming to train Indian wine makers the traditional method of wine-making.

The training will be conducted in five modules at Nasik, the country's wine capital, from July to December.

Italy-based CATEV, a well known European wine testing laboratory, will jointly organise this with the Indo-Italian Chamber of Commerce.

Ranjit Dhuru, promoter of Mumbai-based Chateau D'Ori brand of wines, said this could be an interesting idea as there are hardly any institutes to offer comprehensive training on wine- making.

"We are targeting the entire community of wine makers and growers in the country. Indian wine making is still at a nascent stage and there is scope for improvement "" right from growing to wine maturing, storing, bottling, packaging and marketing," said Royden Correa, business manager at the Indo Italian Chamber of Commerce.

"The training programme is going to benefit wine makers more than the growers. Indian wine developers have just entered the trade and a programme like this will help make them become professionals," said Ravish Ahuja, promoter of Mumbai-based Kiara Wines.

The Indian wine market is expected to reach Rs 450 crore by March 2006, with the market doubling after every two and half years, said Dhuru. Volume-wise the Indian wine market is about six million bottles per year.

The imported wine market is growing at a rate of 40 per cent per annum while the local wine market's growth is about 25 per cent. There are about 34 wine makers in the country and over 200 wine growers.

Most of the Indian wines come from Maharashtra, as 80 per cent of grapes are cultivated in the state, between the Nashik and Pune belt. Other states like Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh are catching up with wine development.

While, a customs duty of 100 per cent is charged on wines imported to India, an additional duty of 75 per cent is charged on cheaper wines imported to the country.

In addition to this, a duty of 20 per cent is imposed on costlier, imported wines. India imports wines from France, Italy, US, Chile, and Australia.