The devil is in the retail

Hectic lobbying for wine to be taken out of the list of prohibited alcoholic drinks has finally paid off thanks to Sharad Pawar. Consider the moves being made by the minister for agriculture to make wine available not just in “wine shops” but also in supermarkets and grocery stores. The idea is to keep the price low and get droves of first-time tasters into the fold. Currently, wine retail accounts for less than 10% of total sales but across the world, almost half the wine is sold through retail outlets.

Retailers and supermarkets across Maharashtra are now being allowed to sell wines in their stores. Sula has already tied up with Food Bazaar as the retail chain’s preferred wine partner and is currently assisting the chain with the licensing process. In fact, Haiko Supermarket in Mumbai has become the first supermarket to obtain the new wine retail licence, under the new law in Maharashtra, which allows supermarkets to sell wine for the first time. Although the law took effect from October 1, 2006, procedural delays came in the process of giving it a practical shape.
With the new policies of allowing sales through supermarkets and with Wal-Mart and Tesco ready to enter the country, the domestic wine retail is about to grow exponentially.

“ The entry of big retail players will get some sort of discipline in wine selling,” says Purnesh, who owns specialty wine retail stores in Bangalore called ‘Not just Wine and Cheese’ and sells wine across Bangalore under the store-in-store format. Purnesh, like every other wine lover, cringes at the way wine is stored in shops. “

Most retailers dont have wine racks or chillers and dont even know the temprature at which wine needs to be stored. Most just stack it in the warehouse and expose it to sunlight which makes wine go rancid, “ he says.