Top Indian brands to figure at London wine fair

LONDON: Top Indian wine brands will showcase their products at the London International Wine Fair (LIWF), to be held on 21 and 22 May.
   
This comes at a time when industry experts see India emerging as one of the largest wine producers in the world by 2058.
    
Some of the Indian brands to be showcased at the fair, considered the single most important event in the world wine calendar, are Marquise De Pompadour, Tiger Hill, Indage Reserve, Chantilli, Riviera, Ivy and Omar Khayyam.
    
The brands are produced mainly in Maharashtra, by Champagne Indage, which enjoys 75 per cent of market share in India. It also exports wine to 69 countries, as per the firm.
     
The company's Managing Director Ranjit S Chougule said: "We are looking forward to showcasing our brands in the LIWF. The event will provide us with a global platform to not only exhibit our wines, but also help us position India as one of the prominent wine producing countries on the global map".
    
LIFW brings together importers, merchants, producers, agents, restaurateurs, wholesalers, sommeliers, and wine makers from across the globe under one roof.
    
The event offers visitors an opportunity to meet with over 1,300 exhibitors from every major wine producing country and taste their wines.
    
In an analysis of the state of the wine industry in the next 50 years, titled 'The Future of Wine', leading wine merchants Berry Brothers and Rudd said ambitious Indians turning to fine wine as a mark of social standing will drive Indias wine industry to new heights.
     
Alun Griffiths, a contributor to the report, said: "India has the potential to embrace wine in a big way and the economic muscle to dictate to producers what style of wine they should be making."
    
The report said the Indian wine industry was currently in its infancy, but technology exchange in winemaking and viticulture from Europe and Australia meant India was likely to challenge the supremacy of traditional wine-making nations.
    
It said the market for wine in India was growing at over 25 per cent per year. If the increasing number of vineyards planted in parts of western and southern India were any indication, India will soon be taken seriously as a fine wine-growing nation, the report said.
    
According to Jonathan Ray, Wine Editor of the Daily Telegraph said: "By 2058 it will be quicker to count those countries that don't make wine than to count those that do. India will have embraced the grape, foreign know-how having identified the best sites for both bulk and single estate wines".
    
Traditionally, France has led the way (in both performance and price) when it comes to high-end, premium vintages, but the report said stiff competition from around the world could soon see the fine wine league table turned on its head.