‘We have invested money in drones, sensor technologies for our vineyards’

In the wine-making landscape, there are two predominant styles, The Old World (countries like France, Italy & Spain) and The New World (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, US). Wine-making has a history of 50,000 to 60,000 years, India is very new to this with just 30 years of history. India has no indigenous grape varieties. Wine in India is made from wine-making grapes imported from countries where wine is being made for centuries. So, when you bring flora and fauna from a foreign land, it takes time to adapt to a new locale. India is not typically an easy terroir but then again, evolution has its way. Typically, Grover is influenced by French-styled wine-making and some of the predominant grapes of this terrior that have managed to adapt to the Indian terroir are Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier and Shiraz. Tempranillo is another variety of grape of Spanish origin that has adapted very well to the Indian terrior.

At Grover, our soul has always been about quality and so we have invested heavily this year on fortifying our viticulture and wine-making departments. As we speak, we have made advanced progress in completely digitizing our vineyards. In countries like Spain, there are records of vines that are nearly as old as 200 years. whereas, the typical lifespan of vine in India is not more than 18 to 20 years. Among other major reasons like allowing evolution to take root, the problem here is that we use artificial drip irrigation; the root does not have to do any hard word. There’s a water source, a water sprinkler and a timer and this provides water in a timely manner to the root. So, where’s the need for the root to go deeper? Whereas there, the roots are tens of feet down, and that’s where they get the moisture and other nutrients as nature would have them provided for. Though grapes are a succulent fruit, they require very little water, but that water needs to be given only at the right time. So, we have invested heavily on sub-surface irrigation.

We have also invested in drones and sensor technologies. The sensors will detect water stress and then the sub surface irrigation system will only give the plant water when it needs it. Research has shown us that this method dramatically improves the lifespan of the vine as also much improves the quality of grape. Also, when you have extensive acreage of vineyards, it becomes nearly impossible to go through every square feet of the vineyard and check for disease. Here is where we have drones that fly over quickly and aerially detect the disease, if any, and administer medication quickly thus saving us millions in terms of crop value. While we have spent a lot of money on these technologies for our vineyards, our goal is to eventually learn and take these technologies further and help our farmers, who have been with us over the years.

Though late on this front, we think it’s the right time for us now to invest on this front. We are almost in the completion stages of our all new facilities in Bangalore. A Restaurant — Lounge de La Reserve, a Cellar Door — Boutique de La Reserve for our Cellar Door Sales, and also an all-new Tasting Room — Cave de La Reserve. We are in advance talks with building stay facilities at our vineyards which are close to the winery. Nashik will see massive investments for an all-new restaurant, a very large ultra-plush barrel-room & tasting room, new lounges, club houses and 60 ultra-premium all-glass chalets that will be built along heights of the hill. The view from up there is breath-taking — 180 degrees of hills and water bodies surround our winery there.

I would suspect that prohibition has come on hard liquor, specifically cheap liquor. Wine did bear the brunt initially but has bounced back. There’s a notional understanding that wine is a healthier and a lighter option. Technically, that’s not very sound, because if you are looking at whisky, you are drinking 40% alcohol volume by volume, but you are diluting it by 5 times, either by soda, water or ice or both. That becomes 8% volume by volume unless, of course, you’re drinking on the rocks (which is not a general practice in India). Whereas wine is 13-14%, which you are consuming straight off. So, sip per sip, wine can be more potent. But yes, with wellness taking a forefront on the socio landscape, the health benefits associated with wine seem to help. The scientific community has proven beyond doubt that red wine is extremely rich with antioxidants which are beneficial in many ways as also urbanisation which is helping in wine consumption as it is perceived to be more sophisticated than other forms of alcohol.

We have a 15-lakh-litre (divided by 9 for the number of cases) capacity in Bangalore, and about 7 lakh litres in Nashik. With rapid expansion in our sales, we needed to secure additional capacities and that’s the reason why we were looking at additional wineries like Four Seasons, which has another 15-lakh-litre capacity plus a land bank of 50 acres and access to another 200 acres, and Charosa which has about 10 lakh litres capacity and a land bank of 230 acres and access to another 270 acres. We have also identified 550 acres of land here (near Bangalore), and about 500 acres in Maharashtra, which are both very good wine-growing lands and another 100 acres in Sholapur. But land today only means grape four years later. If we want to sustain quality, then it’s imperative for us to have vineyards that are directly under our control. Hence, these investments have been made keeping in mind these strategic needs.

I joined this company in 2012, just after a major slowdown due to several internal and external struggles, when it was doing about 25,000 cases. This year, we should close with circa 260,000 cases. Much of our expansion has come from the growth that we have secured in the Indian market. Yes, our exports have also grown. We will most likely close at 20,000 cases this year out of the 260,000 cases. We now export to 28 countries; eight new countries have been added this year. Our biggest market is France. A significant quantity of our La Reserve, Art Collection Rose` & Art Collection Cabernet Shiraz go into France. Our second-largest export market is Japan. US is showing strong growth this year, UK a little slow but we have made strong inroads into Europe this year. We have made our foray into the Nordic world, Finland, and Norway, which are monopolies, from where we have got quick and large repeat orders. These monopolies will never give repeat orders unless they have sold the wines. This shows strong acceptance of our wines in these regions.

On the domestic front, we have a strong footprint across the country with small pockets where we have not been able to enter due to restrictive pricing policies but with having recorded very strong sales this year, we are planning to enter into each and every market this year.

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