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 The overall market in India has experienced one of its slowest years with a total consumption in 2013 thanks to favourable exchange rate for imports, inflation, the rising costs of raw material and tax increases, FSSA labeling requirements for imports, says the Report.
Apparently, the Report has now taken cognizance of the consumption of Port, Goan port and other cheap fortified wines in ‘other wines’ this time-a point being made by delWine for years. This is the fastest growing segment and the report attributes 1.03 million cases to these ‘other wines’- seemingly still a conservative estimate because thousands of cases are produced and sold in Goa alone and are not easy to record.
Most reports in the mainline media also do not take these figures into account whereas all top producers like Sula, Grover, Fratelli, Four Seasons and Big Banyan have been making this wine (think Golconda!) with an annual growth rate of over 25%. During a luncheon meeting with the owners of the IWSR, Mr. Val Smith and his son Alastair Smith in London, I pointed out that it was important to bring out these numbers as they constituted a big chunk of the market and so long as there are no laws in India against making such wines, this was a legitimate production and many aspirational people in the lower middle class were drinking more and more of this wine. Conceding the fact, the Smiths admitted that they had overlooked this earlier and have amended the same in the current Report.
They also admitted that while they had a lot of experience in making these reports in 125 countries, the reports for India were made by talking to a cross-section of the trade people- producers and importers and at times they do give out wrong information or are totally secretive about it. (delWine tries to find a solution by tracking them throughout the year and cross-checking with their competitors. But Val, who has been coming to India for over 20 years (he has also been following the spirits industry), said each country had a problem of accuracy in the data but it was important to tweak the figures and to watch out for the trends.
International Wine and Spirit Research (IWSR) is a premium London-based organization bringing out reports on Wines and Spirits for over 125 countries including the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Russia and of course India. This is their 40th year of operation.
Key Changes in 2013
The overall market has experienced one of its slowest years. Producer margins have come under increasing pressure as the cost of raw materials rose. Duties have also risen in key states.
At the same time, many consumers in the face of a slowing economy have traded down. Here are the impacts in 2013 as compared to 2012, according to the Report:
Still Light Wine: The category continues to show healthy growth. Mumbai, Delhi, Goa and Bangalore are
the key cities and between them could account for as much as 90% of total volumes. Other smaller and
important markets can be found in Punjab and Pune. Consumers are experimenting more with wine due to greater exposure to it through travel, study or media. There is also greater up-take of wine among young urban women and for many wine is the only alcohol consumed. Greater distribution is also helping with many new mid-tier hotels opening and servicing catering outlets with limited wine lists. This is forcing some importers to slim down their lists to focus on the bigger volume houses and brands. Sales of cheap wine are also rising strongly, although not all are totally grape-based. Sales in Goa are particularly strong for this type of wine.
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Champagne and Sparkling Wine: Sparkling wine is growing due to active by-the-glass promotions in
Five-star and mid-tier hotels. The former is much more important for Champagne, the latter for sparkling wine and Prosecco, in particular.
Other Wine: ‘Other wine’ reflects sales of so-called port wine. This tends to be grape or fruit-juice fortified by the addition of spirit. It retails for anywhere between INR75.00 to INR200.00. Some brands are more grape-based than others. This category has been completely overhauled as around a million cases of local ‘port wine’ were previously excluded. This category might be amended further once more is known about the base material of the main brands.
The Report finds an increase of consumption of wines in general at 15.3% with the still wines gaining an impressive 20.4%. Sparkling wines have shown a growth of 16.8%. But the ‘Other Wines’ category has shown a growth of only 10.2% which is far too conservative. The reason is not difficult to find- most producers would give a smaller figure of this category- they don’t even put their name prominently on the label. It may not be shocking to the South Indian residents that a large chunk of this wine is consumed by making a concoction-half wine and half vodka/gin to give the ‘kick’.
The Study forecasts the market to grow to 2.7 million cases out of which still wine will be 1.375 million. The ‘Other wine’ category shows an increase only to 1.15 million, more than which has already been sold in the current year 2013. Of course, the Research is based on a calendar year to maintain uniformity globally whereas in India we use a financial year, from April-March. A few inaccuracies are thus bound to crop up. For instance, there has been a bumper 2-month period in February and March 2014 which will reflect in the Report to be published by delWine later since we cover the financial year, the results of which are still trickling in.
For queries or to purchase the Report, you may directly contact alastair@theiwsr.com
Comment 700 : |
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IWSR, London is considered an international Reference point for the release of Global figures every year for different countries including India. Even they respected the Reports made out in India by delWine. In fact, they added a whole one million of cases as wine consumption this year and the Article reflected that correction. They also conceded that while they had a lot of experience in making these reports in 125 countries, the reports for India were made by talking to a cross-section of the trade people- producers and importers and at times they do give out wrong information or are totally secretive about it. DelWine gets around this problem by constantly being in touch with importers and constantly tweaking the information. |
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Tags: International Wine and Spirit Research (IWSR), Port, Sula, Grover, Fratelli, Four Seasons, Big Banyan
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