DAN'S WINE BLOG- INDIA BLOG
Dan Traucki MWCC
WINE ASSIST P/L Freelance Wine Journalist. Also facilitating the export of Australian Wines to the world.
Friday, November 12, 2021
There have been a number of articles written recently on the opportunities for imported wines in India, including this one from the IWSR,?“Will wine take off in India?” (See link at end of Blog.)
The revived interest comes as the South Australian Government launched their, “South Australian Indian Wine Expansion Program”, for the next twelve months – a drive to sell more wine to India. This has being generated by the fact that the lockout by China means that Australia needs to find around half a billion dollars’ worth of additional exports on top of the resurgence that is happening in the UK and USA.
There are a number of markets where Australian wine could be doing quite a bit better than what it is but I do not think that India is one of them at this point in time. To put the Indian market into context, the country is run by old whisky men who have no interest in wine and often see it as a threat to their way of life. India consumes more whisky per annum than Scotland produces whiskey. The federal government does not even favour the local wine producers and has been, in part, responsible for the failure of several wineries over the years.
More context, the biggest selling wine brand (overall) in India is, Jacobs Creek, with sales of around 50,000 cases a year – which is roughly the same as the amount of wine that Australia exports to Fiji in a year!!
Whilst there are over a billion people living in India, most don’t drink wine, and those that do usually can only afford to do so very sparingly, as the import duty on wine into India is 148.2%. This is even before you get to the state taxes that are levied on top of that. India is divided into 29 states and seven territories, each with their own liquor laws, several of which are “dry” states, where the sale of alcohol in not permitted, and others have exorbitant fees on wines.
It has been 17 years since I visited India to promote Australian wine as part of South Australian Premier, Mike Wran’s first visit to the country. At the time there was an air of excitement that the federal government in Delhi?“might”?be looking at relaxing its?“death grip”?on wine in India. To date nothing much has changed nor will it until there is a generational change in government in India. Today’s leaders are part of the old whisky generation who have no need or incentive to change the alcoholic status quo in the country. In my opinion it will not be until younger?(much younger)?people get deeper into politics and focus more on the health and wellbeing of the country’s citizens (benefits of wine vs whisky) that changes will start to happen.
Apart from which, twelve months of the SA program is an insignificant amount of time for this program to run due to the naturally, very slow pace of business in India.
Sorry to be such a killjoy! I would dearly love to see a much wider rate of wine consumption in India, especially of Australian wines, but after 17 years of hearing,?“it’s about to happen”,?I have given up.
Cheers! Have a great week, stay safe and enjoy great Australian wines.
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