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Sula Wines: A Foray into Uncharted Territory

Article  in  South Asian Journal of Business and Management Cases · June 2018

DOI: 10.1177/2277977917751501

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Case

Sula Wines: A Foray into South Asian Journal of

Business and Management Cases
Uncharted Territory 7(1) 11–20
© 2018 Birla Institute of Management Technology
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2277977917751501
http://journals.sagepub.com/home/bmc
Swati Singh1
Pallavi Srivastava2

Abstract
This case revolves around how Rajeev Samant, Founder and CEO, Sula Vineyards, Nashik (Maharashtra,
India), changed the face of Indian wine industry and made Sula wines a successful brand in both Indian
and international landscape. Sula has become a pioneer brand which not only changed the consumption
pattern of Indian alco-beverage market but also led to acceptance of wines in Indian scenario. Sula
Vineyards is also a leader in sustainable winemaking and has created direct and indirect employment
opportunities for thousands of rural youths. It has positioned itself globally as India’s largest and leading
wine producer. The case exhibits how well-planned brand-building strategies can make an unacceptable
product acceptable in the market. It clearly exhibits various strategies adopted by Samant in building
Sula wines, a brand to reckon with. This includes an exploration of the mindset of consumers to
strategically place new product among the existing pallet of choice.

Keywords
Branding, marketing strategy, wines, positioning, leadership

Introduction
Holding a glass of Rasa Shiraz, his pride and joy in his hand, Samant could see the lush green vineyard
of Dindori Hills far and beyond, from the balcony of his Sula Vineyards office in Nashik. The sight could
have been a feast to anyone’s eye. The man who transformed this grassland into a vineyard pondered

Disclaimer: This case is written for classroom discussion and is not intended to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling
of an administrative situation, or to represent successful or unsuccessful managerial decision-making, or endorse the views of
the management. This study uses secondary data, and information (news reports, published papers, books, reports available on
the company website) and the sources have been cited, wherever such data and information have been used. The views and
opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of South
Asian Journal of Business & Management Cases.

1
Vivekanand Education Society Institute of Management Studies and Research, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
2
Jaipuria Institute of Management, Vineet Khand, Gomtinagar, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India.

Corresponding author:
Swati Singh, Vivekanand Education Society Institute of Management Studies and Research, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400074, India.
E-mail: swati.singh@ves.ac.in
12 South Asian Journal of Business and Management Cases 7(1)

over his next move. He had already made sufficient inroads into the upper middle class and elite class.
Next wise step was to tap the latent population with the right moves and to capture the great Indian
middle class.

Sula: The Genesis

Nashik Vintners Pvt. Ltd (parent company of Sula) took roots when Rajeev Samant came back to India
after finishing his majors from Stanford University. In 1993, a visit to Nashik gave him the idea to use
his father’s unused 20 acres of land for establishing a business. He tried his hand at many businesses like
growing of mangoes and later roses, teakwood and table grapes but met with failures. Success knocked
at his door in the form of wine production when he found an uncanny resemblance between Dindori hills’
landscapes of Nashik in India and those at Napa Valley in California. His research made him realize that
these hills could be used to cultivate wine-producing grapes while everyone else is following traditional
table grape production.
With Indian economy on the rise, he could foresee that liberalization drastically changed Indian
environment in economic terms, with urban Indians willing to explore new avenues to spend their dis-
posable income. He seized the opportunity with an aim to provide them with a novelty that was beyond
their reach at that time. The lack of wineries in India also gave him an incentive to capture an unexplored
market in India and create a new identity with a new Indian product. He aimed to produce high-quality
wines which can compete with internationally produced wines especially that of Spain, California
and Australia. Though wine industry was non-existent at that time, he took a huge risk in producing and
bottling of indigenous Indian wines by establishing Sula Vineyards in 1999 at Nashik.
Although Samant had ventured into the wine industry, he realized that he lacked basic knowledge of
grape growing and wine bottling. He partnered with Kerry Damskey, a winemaker from California to
understand fine nuances of winemaking and to produce wines that can match international standards. He
planted Sauvignon Blanc and Chenign Blanc grape varieties in 1995–1996, his first produce came in
1999, and sale of wine started from 2000.
Samant felt that consumers were evolving post-liberalization. Those from upper middle class were
ready to experiment with wine drinking, especially in social gatherings. Nashik Vintners, owners of Sula
wines, started with a focus on converting 5 per cent of teetotallers and 5 per cent of alco-beverage
consumers to wine drinking, and to convert 5 per cent of women into wine drinkers.

Initial Roadblocks
Initial challenge came in terms of procuring required finances for setting up the plant. Samant’s earlier
project failures made banks shy away from giving him loans. He had to borrow from his friends and
family to start his wine-making project. Later he managed to get the required loan, and eventually in
1998, he was able to raise the money to build his winery. Currently, over 50 per cent of Sula Vineyard
shares belong to Indivision Venture, Verlinvest, The Samant Confintra, GIA (Sula) Holdings and family
owned ICP Holdings (Kurian & Dhamija, 2013).
Another challenge came in the form of marketing and building Sula as the most recognized brand not
only in wine industry but across all alco-beverage segments. Efforts were made to introduce the art
of wine drinking to the Indian consumers and also to poach them from their more loyal alco-beverage
segments and their brands. ‘Not only Indian wines were not heard of, they were more expensive than
Singh and Srivastava 13

some French wines sold in India. Today, things are different—banks are happy to lend us money and
Sula wines have become a cool wine to drink’, said Samant.
Early 1990s was an era of hurdles and bottlenecks for production houses. Regulations were very
tough for obtaining the necessary visa and work-permit for wine production. Samant strategically
manoeuvred the whole bureaucratic system by portraying wine production not as a means of providing
people with an alcoholic drink but as a means of providing employment to rural people and promoting
agro-industry.
Initially, there were no profits for the company with high duties on wines along with the high inven-
tory holding cost, working capital and marketing expenses. He had to go for second round of financing
of `20 million from his investors making the horizon very bleak for himself. The turning point came
when the Maharashtra government decided to support the local wine industry by levying zero excise
duty on grapes grown and sold locally, marking the start of profitability for Sula which they are still
maintaining through right strategies.
In due course of time, Samant met competition from local farmers who tried to replicate his success,
but he overcame that with better quality of wine production. Undeterred, he continued to experiment
with new varietals to offer Indian wine market a basket full of choice.
Samant’s focus was on establishing Sula wines as India’s premier quality wine producer. He used
latest techniques of wine producing without any compromise on quality. He started by getting three
stainless steel grape presses from Italy. These make the whole fermentation process take less than an
hour. Storage facility in India is a big challenge. Earlier techniques of wine storage involved use of oak,
cement and wood barrels or tanks. Samant decided to overcome this hurdle by using stainless steel tanks
and refrigerated technique of winemaking. This makes storage more hygienic and does not impart any
artificial flavour to wine giving it the purest form of fruit flavour a wine can have.

Sula’s Growth Trajectory

The success of Sula led to a snowball effect in terms of plant expansion. Samant sold his first Sparkling
wine in 2001. To keep up with surging demand, he had to start a second winery three times the capacity
of the first in late 2004. Later in 2006, a new winery with a million-litre capacity was established. Sula
expanded from the original 30-acre family estate to about 1800 acres (owned and contracted) under
plantation, in Nashik and its premium sub-region Dindori. Sula Vineyards quickly established a reputa-
tion as India’s premier quality wine producer, and Samant was the first to introduce varietals such as
Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Zinfandel, Merlot, Viognier and Riesling
to India. Sula wines made a mark in the market as a very good product in terms of both taste and texture.
Indian wine market evolved from being non-wine drinkers to wine drinkers. Easy accessibility
coupled with changing consumers’ attitude towards wine due to global exposure through travelling and
trying out new cuisines, wine became a familiar territory to explore. This also led to easy acceptance of
wine drinking by women especially in upper middle class. Sula Vineyards aimed to have a ‘broad-based
clientele’. When Sula started operations, they sold their wines in the four main cities of India. Their
customers were the wealthy Indians, tourists and expatriates. Now the clientele was broader, and the
consumption had moved out to the upper middle class in Tier-II cities, such as the state capitals, and
tourism areas in Maharashtra and even the rural areas.
In 2002, Sula was the first Indian winery to be the subject of a feature in Wine Spectator, the world’s
leading wine magazine. The article stated that Sula produces India’s best white wines. It became the face
of Indian wines on the world stage as India’s leading premium wine brand, and Nashik became India’s
14 South Asian Journal of Business and Management Cases 7(1)

leading wine-producing region for grape-growing with over 35 wineries to boost off. Global media
including Time, Newsweek, CNN, BBC and Bloomberg recognized Rajeev Samant as a person ‘who
made Indians drink wine’, referring to his successful branding strategies.
The wines produced by Samant won many awards, including Silver Medal at the Decanter Asia Wine
Awards,1 Syrah Du Monde for Sula Raza Shiraz. Rasa Shiraz 2007 won the silver at Syrah Du Monde
2010. Samant reminisces:

That was not my proudest moment. My proudest day was when we opened our first bottle of Sula Sauvignon
Blanc in 2000. It was a moment of truth, a testament to years of hard work and wow! It was a knockout. The
minute we tasted we knew we had done something amazing... I now knew this would work.

And it did.
Sula Vineyards also became a leader in sustainable winemaking and created direct and indirect
employment opportunities for thousands of rural youths. It employs at least one member of every family
in the villages surrounding his vineyards.
By 2015, Sula boasted of 1800 dedicated acres of grape cultivation and current wine production of
60,000 cases/year, making the company biggest wine producer with 65 per cent market share. Sula also
built the largest wine footprint in India with a presence in 32 states in India with export to 20 countries
across the globe. Sula had a wide national distribution network of 70 distributors within India. Since its
inception, Sula rapidly saw the consumption grow at 25 per cent annually. The major focus of Sula was
on domestic operations with 93 per cent of sales in India, and only 7 per cent is exports. The retail-
institutional mix had also changed over the last 10 years. Earlier the institutional sales were almost
60 per cent of their sales, and now, it gone down to 40–45 per cent. So the retail market was growing
much faster than the institutional market.2

Basket of Offerings
Sula wines gained the status of India’s premium wines. Samant’s team called him a taskmaster with a
penchant for perfection. It developed a portfolio of 23 different wines with two to three new introduc-
tions every year. The average price of the 750 ml wine bottle was around USD 12 in those days. In order
to cover mass markets their wines were made available at price points starting as low as approximately
USD 1.8 which goes all the way to USD 14.8.
In 2005, Sula launched its first reserve wine (a higher quality wine that has been aged longer), the
Dindori Reserve Shiraz and India’s first dessert wine, the Late Harvest Chenin Blanc. Dessert (sweet)
wine is produced with extra sweet wine grapes. In order to make them sweet, the fermentation is stopped
before the yeast turns all the natural grape sugar into alcohol. There are several ways to stop the fermen-
tation, including super-cooling or adding alcohol to wine. To gain an edge in mindset of consumers and
to cover all aspects of wines, Sula produces sparkling wine as well.
Sula Vineyards’ also built up an import arm known as Sula Selections, which imported wines and
spirits representing iconic brands such as Remy Cointreau, William Grant & Sons, Hardys and Cono
Sur into India.3 The aim was to cater to complete market with both national and international offerings.
Sula also imported and distributed wines from leading producers worldwide. Their wines came from
New World regions such as Australia, South Africa, Argentina and New Zealand as well as Old World
regions such as France, Portugal and Italy.
Singh and Srivastava 15

Brand-building Strategies
Samant’s vision is to make the product perfect in terms of both quality/taste and value for money and
followed it till date. Advertising of alcoholic products is strewn with restrictions in India. It cannot be
part of sponsorship for major sporting events or to support branded products. Samant used wine-tasting
events and entertainment events as part of its primary promotion tool.
He brought people closer to wine by having wine tours at his winery along with ‘experimental tasting’
of wines. The wine tours were open to all the visitors, including a peek into the vineyards, wine-making
process, wine tastings, courses and special events. This made people leave their inhibitions about wine
and gave them connect with wine. A one of its kind in India, it helped a lot in positioning of Brand Sula
among Indian consumers.
In order to make Indian palette more adaptive towards wine, Sula provides about 1600 wine-tasting
sessions a year to educate people on the finer points of enjoying a glass of wine, especially with Indian
cuisine. It also emphasizes that wines of Indian origin are better suited to Indian palette and go well with
Indian spicy food rather than wines of international origin.
To reinforce brand even after the consumers go back, the wines are offered in restaurants with
European style décor to bring forth the wow factor. To convert non-buyers to buyers, wines are offered
at reduced prices during their stay at Sula Vineyards. Coupled with food and wine fairs in major metro
cities of India, Samant has brought a great exposure to Sula wines in competition to international wine
brands.
A major push in establishing an elite identity for brand Sula is in terms of its entertainment event—a
Wine Weekend with Sula in the form of Sula Fest—a music festival which is held at their winery in
February every year. The major purpose is to give brand Sula a cool and exciting image (Fernandes,
2012). The fest includes numerous activities such as grape stomping, wine tasting, foot massage and
tattooing to create an atmosphere of exuberance.
Their boldest move to capture Indian market is to focus on Indian women as their target segment.
With Indian women becoming more economically and socially independent with changing horizons and
open mindset to accepting change, Samant realized a great potential in this segment. Sula created a wine
especially for women, which was low on alcohol, slightly sparkling and sweeter than other varieties.
This was a huge hit as this wine became more acceptable among women.
Greater exposure to Western culture, global travel and experience of other countries, where drinking
wine is part of the lifestyle, also helped to drive sales of wine in India. Sula, which had red, white, rose,
sparkling and dessert varieties, exported about 5 per cent of what it makes. Its largest market was Japan,
followed by the USA and UK, but the company also exported to other parts of Europe and the Middle
East with plans to expand into Africa, China and Russia.
Adding to the many firsts, Samant set up India’s first vineyard resort Beyond, which boasted of a
spacious 2000 sq. ft wine-tasting room (again the first of its kind) overlooking the lush rolling greens of
vineyards with a view of the Gangapur lake.
In order to give wine an elite product association in India, Samant tied-up with five-star hotels and
high-end restaurants alongside wine shops. The restaurants provide an exclusive space to Sula wines by
making it an elite social delight. It also brought forth various cuisines association with different catego-
ries of wine.
In order to overcome the limitations posed by Indian government on the use of mass media to promote
alcoholic beverages Samant used in-shop advertising or on-premise promotions with Delhi being an
exception where restrictions were posed on this also. Though Sula Vineyards has not yet partnered with
celebrities for any of their labels, they have collaboration with artist Jaideep Mehrotra for an exclusively
painted label on their Satori Merlot Red Wine.
16 South Asian Journal of Business and Management Cases 7(1)

The distribution and availability of wine in India is determined by state and federal policy. Earlier
hotels dominated wine sales in India. Strategic manoeuvring was done by adopting distributor’s route
mainly through retail ‘wine shops’ for mass reach and easy acceptance of wines in the market. Currently
the focus is to place wines in supermarkets whereby state government has approved.

Challenges
Sula wines had to struggle during the recessionary phase of 2008–2009. Wine industry with its premium
status and high price tag got a severe setback. Sales of Sula’s premium brands had hit an all-time low and
with wines stuck in its wineries; the company was unable to service debt. So, Samant brought to its
portfolio an affordable range of wines under the brand names of Samara and Port Wine 1000 at USD
2.9 per bottle. The strategy was a table turner and harbinger of an image makeover for Sula wines.
Samant said,

While it is good to be a premium winery, the Indian market has not completely developed to survive only on
premium model. Hence, our business model evolved to what most global wineries do now; that is to have both
premium and value brands. It is necessary to be active in all segments of the market.

These value brands made 30 per cent of the company’s volumes and 20 per cent of turnover value
(Mahathi, 2012).
Samant and his family are the largest shareholders having a 45 per cent stake. In 2010, Verlinvest SA,
a Belgian investment-holding company, purchased about 15 per cent stake in Nashik Vintners for
USD 15 million. Through the deal, Verlinvest acquired part stake owned by GEM India Advisors, Sula’s
earliest investors (Team VCC, 2013).
In the business of wines, the biggest threat to the expansion comes from the availability of raw
material itself, that is, grapes. Sula is struggling hard to get farmers to produce wine grapes rather than
table grapes which have a higher potential of export. Moreover, wine grapes could only be used in
wineries at a predetermined selling price and wine grape varieties are different than the table grape
varieties and cannot be consumed as table grapes. Though they are continuously increasing their
land holdings for wine grape harvest, they need to build more credibility among the farmers for their
conversion and learning in wine grape cultivation.
India’s wine market is vastly different from the global market. Indians alcoholic choice is restricted
to the traditional choice of whisky, rum and beer with no national culture of wine drinking. Religious
constraints also lead to many teetotallers in India.
Though Samant had realized his vision and now India is considered as wine drinking country, the
challenge lies in making middle-class Indians overcome the taboo of social drinking and accepting wine
as a social drink and creating more awareness for upper middle class in terms of choice and selection of
the wines. But, slowly consumers are moving beyond spirits to try premium beverages.

Road Ahead
The next big evolution on the Indian tourism market is perceived to be wine tourism setting up wine
bars. Not only is wine tourism a great way for the wine lovers to appreciate the product, but also it gives
them an insight of the whole wine culture and appreciates the wine-making process. It would also
increase wine drinking in India, as it would provide a platform for tastings and education on wine.
Singh and Srivastava 17

Modern-organized retail stores selling alcohol may also give the new-age Indian women freedom to buy
wine without hassle.
Even as Samant strives to enhance the taste of his indigenous wines, he is thinking ahead in terms of
producing the king of wines, Chardonnay (it is a green-skinned grape variety used to make white wine.
It is believed to have originated in the Burgundy wine region of eastern France but is now grown
wherever wine is produced) which still lacks its presence in Sula kitty. Samant is also exploring the
possibility of growing Chardonnay grapes in the near future, taking Sula to the premium league which it
rightfully deserves.
Samant plans to get about 100,000 visitors at its winery, making it one of Maharashtra’s main non-
religious tourist attractions. Samant plans to include a wine spa and boutique hotels to take Sula wines
on the other extreme.4 Currently, Sula’s customer base has grown twice as fast among women as men.
Purchasing alcohol in India can be an ordeal for both women and men, with cramped wine and beer
shops often located in uninviting back allies.
The face of India has changed in terms of both product choice and consumption pattern. Sula has
established the base for wine acceptability in India. But success can be retained only when new channels
and new customer base are added. So far, the strategies were designed keeping in mind upper middle-
class consumers, in which Samant succeeded. But, with middle class as target group (TG), there lies a
challenge to bring wine at par with their mindset and still not losing an aura of elite association with
upper middle class. The strategies that have worked in favour of Samant earlier will not apply for this
TG. The market is open and uncharted to wine sellers. It is only the right set of tools that will capture and
make Sula a household name with middle-class consumers.
Sula Vineyards enjoys 65 per cent market share in India and exports its wines to 20 countries across
Asia, Europe, Middle East, the USA and Canada. Currently, annual Indian wine consumption is hardly
10 ml per capita compared to China’s 400 ml. Samant aims to match the Indian consumption to China’s
market.
As Everstone Capital—a private equity firm with assets worth USD 1.7 billion under management—
plans to exit its investment in Nashik Vinters, the holding company of Sula Vineyards, company has been
looking to rope in new investors and allow Everstone an exit.
The second largest wine-producing region in India after Nashik is Bangalore. Here Sula faces tough
competition from Four Seasons Wines. In order to make its presence felt as part of the region, Samant
has plans afoot to set up a winery there.
Now Samant has too many issues up his sleeve. How to make wine more reachable and a more plea-
surable experience for the new-age Indian women consumers? How to tap the latent customers from the
middle-class segment? Although Samant has come up with very innovative brand promotion strategies,
what else can be done to expand its market share? What can be done to match India’s consumption of
wine to that of China’s? Samant also needs to develop credibility among its investors so that there is
never a shortage of resources for the firm. How can it be done? What can be done to stay ahead of his
competitors? Will it be a wise move to take competitors head on by setting up a winery in Bangalore?
What should be his next move?

Background Notes

Evolution of Indian Wine Market

According to World Health Organization, annual Indian alcohol consumption is 33 litres by males and
11 litres by women. The Indian hard liquor market has 93 per cent whisky or vodka drinkers with only
18 South Asian Journal of Business and Management Cases 7(1)

7 per cent of beer drinkers. India’s wine drinking population is very low with only 1 per cent. Though
60 per cent of Indian men and 90 per cent females abstain from alcohol all their lives, a high shift is seen
over the last few years in drinking habits in India. The WHO found that 32 per cent of men and fewer
than 11 per cent of women in India over the age of 15 drink alcohol (Sinha, 2014). Hence, the growth
potential of Indian wine market is immense. Though India is still among the lowest wine-consuming
markets, changing lifestyle habits are seeing a boom in the industry. The industry has seen a dramatic
shift in terms of wine perception in India. India has become one of the fastest-growing wine markets in
the world, with growth of more than 25 per cent a year over the last few years. The annual consumption
in Indian market is about 100,000 cases of wine with Sula dominating the market with 35 per cent share.5
India is now the 11th biggest wine-consuming country in the Asia-Pacific with wine consumption in
India set to increase to 2.1 million cases by 2017. The growth of red wine is projected to be 71.6 per cent
in the next few years. The share of imported wine is also set to increase to 480,000 cases in 2017 from
280,000 cases in 2013.
Liberalization has brought drastic change in Indian wine industry. For setting up a winery at a state
level, there is no more requirement of a central licence from Delhi, and there is now 100 per cent auto-
matic FDI in wineries. Also, at the state level, licensing is much easier than it used to be. In fact, there
was a de facto ban on new winery licences in Maharashtra. In 1999, Sula was the first winery, which was
granted a licence, after 15 years but subsequently 75 new licences have been issued. So it is completely
a liberalized scenario, at present. The biggest roadblock in India is regulatory hindrance faced by wine
sector. Alcohol consumption is a state issue. In Tamil Nadu, all the retail stores are owned by the state
with permit for sale of only state produced or bottled products. With no wine production in Tamil Nadu,
there is no stock in store except in the five-star hotels, leaving the market bare. Karnataka, another wine-
producing region like Nashik, imposes huge state duties on Maharashtra’s wine, and vice versa. In order
to achieve growth in the Indian market, there is a need to bring down the duties and have free trade zones
for wine within India. Other states like Andhra Pradesh have 70 per cent sales tax. Such issues make it
difficult to sell wine in the entire country liberally.
Grape prices have also come down over the past few years from USD 118 to USD 73 per metric ton.
This is mainly due to cash flow issues as many wineries continue to hold large quantity of wines from
their previous harvest in their tanks, thus making them unwilling to invest in new tankage. Sula makes a
balance by buying some grapes from the promoters—Dindori vineyards and some from contract
growers.
Lately, there has been a shakeout in the wine industry with many companies unable to sell their wine.
This shakeout was bound to happen. As lot of people have rushed into this industry in the last 5 years
with very little understanding of what it takes to make good wine and market it effectively in India, some
of these new entrants are grape growers who saw this as a way to integrate vertically. But the skill set
required is completely different. Some of these players are hurt very badly, especially the ones who were
expecting an ongoing huge boom and crushed excessive grapes in the last two vintages. There is a diver-
gent trend in the industry today with Sula and one or two other players going from strength to strength,
but a number of other players are going bankrupt.

Products Manufacturers/Traders
Indian wine market is crowded with wines from small boutique vineyards. But only few would be able
to enter the mature market as agriculture graduate becomes a winemaker even though they have
never tasted wine before. Some of the wine producers do not even drink the wine because it is a taboo
Singh and Srivastava 19

(Krishnan, 2013). Indians are looking for new wines, and there is a whole new economic stratum of
upper middle class that is starting to appreciate wine, but there is very little availability. ‘Wine consump-
tion is growing in small towns and satellite cities. Every two weeks, new wineries are being set up.
Bangalore, Chandigarh, Bombay are reporting high growth in consumption. Nashik, the capital of Indian
wines, registered a 100 per cent increase,’ says Samant.
Vijay Rekhi, who heads the spirit business of UB group, said ‘the Indian wine market is about a
million cases now’. Wine exports have gone up by about 150 per cent in 2013.6 Indian companies are
mushrooming around Nashik to capitalize on the rising demand for wines. There are about 25 of them,
besides the big ones, producing and supplying wines in small and medium levels, from 5000 cases to
10,000 cases.
Outside Nashik, other Indian companies with stakes in the wine industry are Grover Vineyards and
Four Seasons Wines, both based in Karnataka, in southern India. Sula presently has the largest market
share while other key players in the wine industry are Grover Vineyards, United Spirits’ wine division
and Indage Vintners. Grover Vineyards and Four Seasons by UB Group together have sold fewer number
of cases than Sula last year. The Bangalore-based Grover, Maharashtra-based Indage group and Sula
Vineyards are the top organized players in the industry. Grover was initially a supplier to defence
companies in France, but the French connection later enticed the Grover to the wine-making business.
Chougule Group is the oldest and the largest.
Deepak Roy, a veteran in spirit and wine industry, has launched his own brand of wines from Nashik
titled ‘Valle De Vin’. John Distillers, a Bangalore-based spirit company, has set up a winery in Goa to
produce wine brands from bulk wines brought from Maharashtra. The brand is Big Banyan, named after
a popular tourist spot in Goa. In order to take wines more mainstream, Grover Zampa Vineyards and
Vijay Amritraj, one of India’s earliest international tennis stars, launched a label in his name comprising
of his fine wine collection at a celebrity-packed Wimbledon themed party in July 2014. This was done to
showcase his passion about wine tasting and collection which he indulged through his travels around the
world. While the ‘Vijay Amritraj Reserve Collection’ is the first celebrity wine label in this country, the
tennis ace joins famous golfers Ernie Els and Greg Norman, both of whom have their own wine collec-
tion (Gupta, 2014). Industry experts say that this strategy which is new to Indian market could be a
trendsetter in India with celebrities soon looking to launch their own labels of alco-beverage.

Notes
1. http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-07-16/news/40613605_1_wine-market-sikkim-gangtok
2. http://www.indiainfoline.com/article/research-leader-speak/rajeev-suresh-samant-founder-and-ceo-sula-vine-
yards-9340177_1.html
3. http://www.sulawines.com/
4. http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/find-out-sula-vineyards-success-story-future-plans_595726.html
5. http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2006-11-30/news/27436506_1_indian-arm-indian-market-wine
6. https://www.xing.com/communities/groups/wine-in-india-1055118

References
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20 South Asian Journal of Business and Management Cases 7(1)

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