June 17: With change of guard at Grover Zampa (GZV)(as Ravi Viswanathan, the big, astute investor in the Indian wine industry and Chairman of GZV, thanks to majority shareholding of his PE company Visvires in Singapore, he has taken charge assisted by his CEO Vivek Chandramohan, with innovation, creativity, modern equipment and sharp focus on quality and making it the first multi-brand wine company in India, is nothing short of a revolution in the offing, writes Subhash Arora who visited the Bangalore winery in Nandi Hills this month to meet and share his ideology and strategy
The Keynote Address at the delWine Excellence Awards on April 21 at Pullman New Delhi Aerocity, by Chairman of Grove Zampa Vineyards, Ravi Viswanathan was like a breath of fresh air. With no platitudes he ripped through the shortcomings of the industry since its existence in the mid nineties and insisted that despite government’s current negative attitude towards wine, the industry needed to modernise itself and move forward. He talked of some of the factors including upgrading of the Bengaluru winery and setting up a new one and taking up wine tourism in a big way. The speech was admired and applauded by one and all and was highlight of the Conference.
I decided to visit the winery in Bangalore and check out the developments, making sure I would be able to meet the man behind this revolution which is fermenting in and out of the tanks. It was a matter of honour that Ravi was in the winery for a couple of days and reserved one day to be totally with me so we could share at length his philosophy and the direction he had in mind.
For the last over one year, Grover has been in the news for several reasons. There has been a change in the top management and in the Board in line with ownership stakes with the departures of Kapil Grover, Ravi Jain and Deepak Roy of erstwhile Zampa that merged with Grover in 2012 when the protagonist of the deal was none other than Ravi Viswanathan, then barely known in India.
Ravi went on to invest in Sula Vineyards too later. In an interview over dinner Ravi had told me that he had been studying the Indian market closely and the time was right to invest in India now. Perhaps due to ideological differences or perhaps because of his different long term plans, Ravi withdrew his shares from Sula (at a profit matching initial expectations) and invested big time in GZV, taking his holding (and that of his PE Fund VisVires to over 50%) and hence the control .
During this process, he bought a winery in Burgundy with his partners at visvires capital. And greater symbiosis between grover and etroyes will be announced this fall.
It bought a 300 year old Domaine Protheau in Mercurey in Côte Chalonnaise in South Burgundy over a year ago and renamed as Château d’Etroyes. The winery is now producing La Reserve de Bourgogne, a label named after its world famous La Reserve brand and will export wines to India and the countries where GZV is already exporting wines, starting September, says Ravi.
Multi-brand company
During this period, Ravi also bought Charosa, Four Seasons and Myra Vineyards of Bangalore, besides Domaine Protheau. This visionary has had plans all chalked out for expansion and realigning the business.
GroverZ plans to be a multibrand company and not a single brand company like Sula, says Ravi. ‘We cannot compete with Sula now and so must do something different, ’ he says. ‘Charosa has a good brand image and will continue to be sold in the market. Since the winery has a lot of vineyard acreage and is fairly modern, it will be expanded By about 2m litres and most of the production in Nashik will be shifted to Charosa and the existing location will become a high-end boutique winery.
A massive plan of expansion to make the existing winery a wine tourism destination is in the offing and the first glimpse with glass chalets, audio visual presentations and modern tasting areas with a restaurant will be the highlight of the refurbished complex the work for which has already been going on at brisk pace.
A new winery is coming up in Bangalore-30 minute drive from the existing plant (500 m from the Soma Bangalore Winery location. It has plans for wine tourism with a wine spa- and a 400,000 litre (about 45,000 cases) capacity winery; work on this winery starts in December. He has budgeted Rs. one billion for the winery and another Rs. one billion for hospitality. ‘The story for this winery is sexy,’ he says.
Four Seasons, on the other hand has not much brand value as a label but it will be used as a production base as well as wine tourism by expanding the existing structure. In the group portfolio, Its wines are the closest in style to Sula’s we will keep it that way. The company also envisages expansion of Golconda Gold, the fortified wine, quite popular in yesteryears with ‘Gold’ being of higher quality and already being made in this winery before it was shut down. Ravi anticipates planting more vineyards around the domain and to expand the production capacity as well
He has an interesting spin on Myra. Ravi asserts that Grover has had French and sophisticated image-historically the company assisted by Michel Rolland: For an interview with the Maestro in 2005- before delWine was born in 2006, please visit
Chat With Michel Rolland
‘The average age profile for their wine drinkers is above 35 years-slightly sophisticated types who are more inclined towards French wines or in any case Old World wines. We cannot ignore the millenials who do not get excited about Grover label. Our core brand ‘Art Collection’ was top brand 10 years ago. But today Grover does not appeal to millenials who prefer young trendy new products. Gin and tonic , craft beer, carbonated RTD drinks, wine in cans, Himalayan water (for future), cosmetic raw material from the used Must, are some of the products that will be offered through this label- the process is already on for some of these products and will be rolled out within the year.
No New wineries for now
Having bought Charosa, Four Seasons and Myra, the company has become a target as a potential buyer for small to medium sized companies. ‘We have been approached by almsot every small winery without exception to be bought over but we are taking a breather since we have enough winemaking space for the next 3 years at least,’ says Viswanathan who feels the boutique wineries must be made to sustain as these are the ones that produce exceptional quality. Unfortunately, due to the financial troubles, all of them may not be able to sustain for long.’ Grover sold 260,000 cases last year, focused on quality wines and hopes to increase the year by over 50% and follow it up for the next 3-4 years.
Ravi says when he started investing in Grover it was Rs. 200 million at 10-15% of the value of the company. Now it has crossed 50%. The company is worth 450 crores (apprx $64.5 million). All current and future investments are at Rs. 120 a share.
Grover as importer
Grover will start importing wines from Burgundy in September this year with a Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and an Aligoté wine. ‘We are setting up a Negoce from Burgundy. We have a Domaine that can make its own wines. Négociant will get other wines from Burgundy and France and collect in our estate for warehousing. We will ship whole containers to India from Ch de Etroyes. Initially Grover is planning to import about 20 French labels only.
‘The company will also use its Burgundy base to focus sales to Indian restaurants as well as French restaurant as our new focus. We will increase presence of Négociants to develop business in Indian as well as high class French restaurants. It may not represent a lot of business but it will show world and Indian consumer that we make very good quality wines. But our philosophy remains to make the best wines we can sell and not the best wines we can produce,’ says Ravi.
What’s in a Name
With the old management exiting from the management seat it would make sense to change the name of the company and make it shorter, I suggested. GroverZ as the name that I us generally to make it shorter and it has the essence of both the names. ‘Grover is a brand as a label. Zampa has been already disassociated as a label. We plan to have a total revamp and change the name of the company to an umbrella name that will have all the labels under it. Because of the complications involved in a name change we shall look at it in 2-3 years framework and have already engaged agencies to suggest a new name. We may even want to remove Grover from the company’s name as the umbrella company will have several other products and labels.’
For technological innovations and process changes and new machinery, please await the next edition as Part- II of the Article.
Subhash Arora