| The Indians Drinking Wine? Are You Serious? | | | | By: kulpreet yadav |  Page 1 of 3 next >> |
The Indians Drinking Wine? Are You Serious?
Predicting the future of the wine industry in India without crystal gazing or astrology – based purely on primal beliefs, faiths and the gaps in-between.
The economy is in place. The statistics continue to impress. If Finance Minister’s 29 February 2008 budget presented in the Indian parliament is an indication to go by, the Indians will merrily sail through the forthcoming fiscal able to spend even more, and live better. Pay commission for central government employees has also just been declared. States are likely to follow suit soon. And the bonhomie is not restricted, or contained, within the confines of Indian shores alone. Indian’s are fast adapting to a global lifestyle – traveling more, eating different and forging global partnership with a confident vigor. Now, with all the sectors brimming with growth, can the Wine industry be left behind? Whether the existing growth is all that is feasible in the present circumstance? Can something be done to register an instant fillip? Let me take you on a wine day out and let us together figure it out.
Having been in and out of numerous wine events, tasting and dinners, and discussed the future of the Indian wine drinking culture over many narrowed rims of wine bowls with highbrow experts, connoisseurs, magazine editors, promoters and sommeliers, I am at last beginning to see the future picture. But the problem is, though the picture is there, its detailing is blurred in obscurity. It’s like looking at something through the wine glass with legs crawling along the entire inner surface – you see the outline of the object but can’t figure out what it is.
So, in other words, the future picture remains rooted firmly only in our imagination – and therefore each one of us entitled to a different one. This is the real reason why the wine industry – though predicted to sustain its growth of 30% for the next few years – is disillusioned about. And therefore it’s about time we tried to navigate through the pitfalls the industry will have to negotiate in the future. But foremost let us understand Indians and their appreciation about wine, a little better. First, Indians traditionally are accustomed to an alcohol free life. Even if it is consumed in certain areas in the hinterland, it is consumed under a false shielding of rituals or religion and not routinely. Regular consumption is considered a bad habit and the society doesn’t take the existence of such extroverts lightly. That is how it is in the villages, where about two thirds of the population lives, even today. Let us leave them out of the wine-drag for the moment. The middle class in the smaller cities, the future consumers, live in a world where alcohol consumption is only reserved for men, that too during festivals like Diwali and Holi (Thanks to Bollywood, the Indian film industry as it is popularly called, the alcohol drinking culture has been immortalized by a few songs and dance sequences by some of the superstars which Indians fondly like to recreate during such festivals). Here too, the women whose husbands abstain consumption of alcohol, openly flaunt, “My husband doesn’t even touch alcohol”. Both the shine on the confident women’s face and the smile playing on the husband’s lips is an instant fashion statement. On the other hand, the lady whose husband indulges occasionally often sulks and feels challenged, and therefore jealous. In the Indian metros however, including the capital New Delhi, commercial capital Mumbai and other larger of the Indian cities with population over ten million people, the alcohol consuming men, and seldom women, are regarded as equal to the teetotaler ones. But here too, girls still prefer a teetotaler husband and the groom’s parents cannot imagine even in their wildest dreams their daughter-in-law drinking alcohol.
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