An increasing number of Indians are sipping on wine. Or maybe the same lot of us are just guzzling more of it. Either way, wine sales have risen 217 percent in 2010 over sales in 2009 according to Myles Mayall, wine advisor to The Wine Society of India.

Sula Vineyards, for instance, sold 2.6 lakh cases in 2010 and is looking at pushing that figure to 3.5 lakh in the next year, mostly in the premium segment. Sula, however, predicts that there will be about 50 percent rise in the growth of imported wines.