Companies offer wine-lovers more reasons to cheer with freebies

PUNE: If you plan to celebrate this Christmas with wine and cake, you may get more than what you sought, as winemakers have lined up freebies ranging from wine glasses to invitation for grape stomping festival for the festive season.

Wineries such as Sula, Grover Zampa and Riona Wines have come up with special festival season wine promotion schemes.

Market leader Sula has introduced a special festival packaging for its new sparkling range Sula Brut and Sula Brut Rose. Sula's Dindori Shiraz is packaged in a classic wooden case, while wine glasses are gifted with its red wines.

Grover Zampa winery, based at Nandi Hills and Nashik, has gone a step beyond regular promotion activities such as gift packaging and price discounts by giving its consumers an opportunity to participate in its grape stomping festival. Some 40 people buying a bottle of Grover Zampa wine between December 15 and January 15 will get to participate in the Great Grover Stomp that will take place at its winery in Nashik next month.
"This week, we have started distributing the coupons for participation in the stomp at key retail outlets in Mumbai, Pune and Nashik," Sumedh Singh Mandala, chief executive officer at Grover Zampa Vineyards, said. "We also have offers of winning a laptop or bikes in Bangalore," he said.

Sangli-based Riona Wines, which imports Italian wines, is giving free branded accessories such as wine glasses and cork openers with its wine bottles. "We gift the Moncaro glasses and cork openers, which also help to reinforce our brand image in the minds of the consumers," said KT Mane, director at Riona Wines, which also sells its wine accessories at Nature's Basket.

It had gifted 3,000 glasses and 1,800 cork openers during last year's festival season sale.

Industry experts say the festive offers this year are influenced more by demand-pull factors than supply-push factors as in the past, thanks to increased demand for wine in the country.

Jagdish Holkar, chairman of Indian Grape Processing Board (IGPB), said the festive season schemes have become fairer for the wineries now.

"During the initials years when wine drinking was a nascent culture in India, the wineries had to push the wine sales with schemes that gave free bottles to promote sales. These were unfair schemes as their objective was to merely liquidate the stocks," he said.

The Indian wine industry is just about two decades old and wine drinking is still evolving in the country. But the rise in demand in recent years has helped leading players to look for ways to promote their brand in the festive season rather than just clear stocks.

"It is only the smaller wineries, which do not have big operating costs, that offer schemes like six bottles free on 12 bottles," head of a Maharashtra-based winery said.