Four Seasons Wines Ltd (FWSL), a subsidiary of United Spirits Ltd (USL) and part of the United Breweries Group, is looking to export its wines to France, the UK, Germany and Japan.
Mr Vijay K. Rekhi, President and Managing Director, USL, said there was considerable amount of interest overseas in Indian wines and that the company would start exporting before the year-end. Mr Rekhi was speaking to newspersons on the sidelines at the launch of Four Seasons Wines here.
USL’s wine business consists of two entities — United Vintners Ltd (UVL) and FWSL. While UVL imports wines from all over the world, FWSL produces and sells domestically brewed red and white wines under the Four Seasons and Zinzi brands.
FWSL plans to produce up to one lakh cases of wines in the current financial year, its first full year of operations. One case contains 12 bottles of 750 ml each. USL entered the wine market in recent years and has invested till date Rs 40 crore in setting up a winery at Baramati in Maharashtra.
“We plan to scale up our investments to Rs 100 crore in the next three years,” said Mr Abhay Kewadkar, Chief Wine Maker and Director at FWSL. The company plans to garner 30-40 per cent market share in the Indian market over the next three to four years, Mr Kewadkar said.
The domestic wine market is estimated at Rs 400 crore in value terms. The industry is witnessing growth of 30-40 per cent. However, the industry faced bottlenecks in terms of high taxation in States such as Karnataka.
The Karnataka Government recently introduced additional excise duty on all wines imported into the State at Rs 300 a bulk litre, which makes the wine costlier to that extent.
“We are in talks with the Karnataka Government on this issue,” said Mr Kewadkar.
Source : Business Line