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February 2009 - Posts
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The policy, says new distilleries, breweries, winery and bottling units
will be encouraged. The licence fee of breweries, with production
capacity of 1.2 crore bulk litres, will continue to be Rs 25 lakh per
annum while for those with more production capacity it will be Rs 50
lakh. The annual licence
fee for distilleries and bottling units with production capacity up to
10 lakh LPL has been fixed at Rs 10 lakh, those between 10 and 30 lakh
at Rs 20 lakh, between 30 and 60 lakh at Rs 25 lakh and more than 60
lakh LPL at Rs 35 lakh. Besides, the annual licence fee for wine
producing units has been fixed at Rs 1 lakh. The duty for Indian
made whisky, gin, rum, brandy and Vodka has been fixed at Rs 140 to Rs
200 per LPL depending on the landing cost at the Orissa State Beverages
Corporation (OSBC). The duty on imported and bottled liquor will be Rs
300 per LPL, wine imported in bulk and bottled will be Rs 140 per LPL. The
existing licences of ‘ON’ clubs will be renewed with a fee on the basis
of consumption. For up to 500 LPL per month, it will be Rs 90,000 per
annum, between 500 and 800 LPL, it will be Rs 1.25 lakh and beyond the
fee it will be Rs 1.75 lakh.
More: Express Buzz
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Taylor & Shroff Ltd, a UK-based company, has launched its new range of wines in India. They offer: white and red wines, Apricot wine, and the latest -- Cherry Wine and Ginger Wine.
All Taylor & Shroff wines can be stored without refrigeration for over 25 days under Indian climatic conditions.
The company sees a lot of potential in the Indian market and plans to invest about five million pounds in the next two years, and expects a turnover of 34 million pounds in the next five years.
Their Cherry wine is targeted at women as women enjoy soft and soothing drinks, whereas Ginger wine is for men and has a strong flavour. Cherry wine is red in colour and has an intense fruit flavour. It is sweet and can be easily consumed with the spicy Indian food. Both, the Cherry and Ginger wines have 17 per cent alcohol content. More: Hospitality Biz India
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Hindu scriptures are full of references of gods, goddesses, kings and queens enjoying their drink, says Mrinal Pande.
Ramayana has it that Ram offered Maireya, a favourite wine of the royalty, to his bride Sita. And later, when on their exile, while crossing the Ganga, Sita vowed that if they survived the 14-year ordeal and returned unharmed to Ayodhya, she’d pour a thousand jugs of wine into the river as thanksgiving. When the couple did return, says Valmiki, author of the epic, the city celebrated with binge drinking and happy slogans. A delirious Ayodhya, writes Valmiki, reeked of joy and wine for days.
True, the Rig Veda frowns somewhat on alcoholic drinks and says they may cloud one’s judgement and lead minds astray. But a little later, the sutras (treatises on the Vedas) say that people may swill alcoholic drinks on happy occasions such as the arrival of an honoured guest, entering a newly built house or the arrival of a bride into the family. The sutras also lay down a caste-based list of who shall drink what. They forbid the warrior castes from drinking grain-based liquor, but permit them to drink wine brewed from fruits and flowers.
Traders and sailors and non-caste folk could drink what they liked. Later, Vedic literature mentions several popular drinks such as Kilala (a sweet fermented alcoholic drink), and Masara (filtered rice gruel liquor much like the Handiya still drunk by the tribals in central India) and Madira (a honey-based drink).
More: LiveMint
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The India International Wine Fair (IIWF) is dedicated to wine, wine products and the wine sector in general. The India International Wine Fair and Gourmet Show will take place from March 16-18, 2009 at the Grand Hyatt hotel, Mumbai.
The three-day trade show will showcase wine manufacturing, exports, distribution, marketing, refrigeration, equipment like glassware, storage and serving accessories, logistics solution providers and others. The IIWF event will also feature a three day B2B exhibition, two day India International Wine Summit, an exhibitor and media networking evening, plus exclusive wine tasting sessions for key Indian buyers and a training classroom by the Wine and Spirits Education Trust (WSET).
For a country that has produced wine for over 5000 years and which has over 1 20000 acres of vineyards, it is surprising that the Indian wine industry is relatively underdeveloped, feels Abhey Singh, MD, Informa, the event organising company for this show. More: Hospiatality Biz India
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Rajasthan's chief minister Ashok Gehlot's anti-alcohol drive may bear fruit only if the government policy and inverted tax structure are reversed,
feel experts. The present policy encourages consumption of hard liquor rather than mild alcoholic beverages like beer and wine.
The government should encourage right behaviour through right policies. Countries like Russia and China in recent times have successfully introduced polices that served to reduce harmful drinks by encouraging beer and wine by making these more affordable and readily available. While the concentration of alcohol in hard spirit is around 40-45%, in wine it is 13%, with beer being the lowest, ranges from 4-7.5%.
More: The Times of India
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Michel Rolland is the world's best-known independent wine consultant, lending his expertise in wine-making and grape-growing to wineries in France and California and to places as far flung as South Africa, India, and South America.
Rolland's lifestyle has many considering him lucky, but the word does not sit well with him. "In life we are not lucky. We have to work, first of all. Where I am lucky is that I actually have the ability to work and that I have the ability to travel. I don't know what jet lag is," he said.
Despite more than 100 clients spread out over five continents, Rolland and his wife, Dany, still maintain an oenology laboratory in their home city of Pomerol, France.
Rolland grew up in the winemaking business in Pomerol, where his father ran the family estate, Chateau le Bon-Pasteur, a highly esteemed Bordeaux winemaker. In middle-class French country families, it was commonplace for the elder son to pursue a more professional track and career, while the younger son, Michel, was expected to take care of the vineyards.
Asked if he regrets the lack of choice, Rolland says, "It was written in the books for me even before I was born, my destiny."
When winemakers meet with Rolland, their first question is, "Is there something we can do to improve quality?"
His answer is invariably yes: "There is always something to do." "It is easy to make good wine. To take it from good wine to better wine, there are a lot of details. There is no formula or checklist. You have to look at the entire process and step by step you get there. That's my job. I am working mostly on the details."
(In India, Michel Rolland is consultant for Chateau D'Ori)
More: Honolulu Advertiser
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Goa-based wine distributor Alto Mundo Vinhos Impex Pvt Ltd has acquired the marketing and distribution contract for Ritza Wines from Sangli. Subsequently, the company has introduced four wine varietals for the domestic market. Plans are also under way to add three more wines from Ritza's portfolio by March 2009.
Shyam Degumwar, CEO, Alto Mundo Vinhos Impex Pvt Ltd says, “After distributing a premium imported product like Carmim Wines, we decided to shift our focus on domestic products. Liquor licenses and duties levied on imported wines make it difficult to market such products effectively in India. Hence, we believe that a domestic wine product can be rigorously marketed on a pan India basis. We anticipate that Ritza wines will appeal to the local market and wine enthusiasts.
More: Hospitality Biz India
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Can it be that the educated palate isn’t educated at all? Is this an oenological dirty little secret? A four-year study in the United States, made public last week, showed that only 10 percent of wine judges were consistently able to give the same wine the same rating twice, to wines sampled multiple times in blind tastings.
To use the adage, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”, it is one thing to be well-versed in wine and another to have a trained palate with level of skill and experience to consistently and accurately analyze wine. The conundrum exposed by the study brings to light the flaws of wine shows and the credulous trust that consumers place in ‘experts’, whereas they would perhaps be better off having more confidence in their own palates.
Every wine writer or industry professional must grapple with scoring at some point, discomfortingly critical as it is to one’s reputation and possibly the only way to establish credibility. Personally, I have a love-hate relationship with scoring. As tempting as it is to gloat in the power of assigning numbers, I continue to be ambivalent. In Asia a growing caste of wine drinkers are obsessed with scores, along with wine merchants and marketers who seek to sell wine through the blatant exploitation of ratings. Even more worrying is that the average Asian wine drinker is oblivious to the issues, new to western-style wine and reared on the 100-point scoring system.
More: Asia Sentinel
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