The Change Mariner

India: Transformation and Its New Wine Economy

Food Production Daily:

NASIK, India — Educated in Silicon Valley but seduced by Sonoma Valley, Rajeev Samant decided to come home to these dry hills northeast of Bombay to try making wine in India, a nation where annual wine consumption works out to one teaspoon per person.

Six years after planting his first cuttings of sauvignon blanc from France and chenin blanc from California, Mr. Samant has a big problem: "We keep running out of wine."

... But Mr. Samant's Sula Vineyards is a runaway success, doubling its output each year since 2000 and still not keeping up with demand.

... Sula's success speaks to two factors transforming India's economy: globalization and the cutting of red tape. These new forces are contributing to India's projected economic growth this year of 5 percent, a peppy rate after years of slumber.

With 20 million Indians studying or working overseas, this formerly inward-looking nation is increasingly open to new ways of doing things — though many of the old strictures still survive, including a ban on advertising alcoholic beverages.

Watch out Napa Valley

- nmw