Indian wine ‘more than just a novelty’ in UK retail

Indian wine’s sustained strong performance in Marks & Spencer stores shows that it has more than mere novelty value for UK consumers, according to M&S wine buyer Emma Dawson.

The performance of Indian wines in the UK on and off-trade was discussed at the inaugural Indian wine fair in Central London (Photo: APEDA)

Indian wine has been on the shelves at M&S for around 18 months, Dawson said during a roundtable discussion at the first London Indian wine fair over the weekend of November 6-8. The retailer sells three Indian wines: a Sauvignon Blanc, a Tempranillo/Syrah and Zinfandel rosé.

“We’ve got a really good track record of sales performance,” Dawson said.

“We have a range of wines from what we call the ‘other world’ – countries like Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel – and that gave us some confidence because they were doing very well. So when I took the first volume for Indian wine, I based it on what those countries were doing, and I actually had to go back and buy three times that amount.

“Of this range of ‘other’ countries, Indian wines now represent 25% of sales of that range. And that’s a complete surprise to us. It shows for me that it wasn’t a novelty thing, because if it was a novelty thing you’d find that the first six months were great and then everything would just trail off. But actually it’s very stable in terms of sales.

“We’re a food retailer that’s known for being adventurous,” she explained. “We do very well on our Indian food and our wine advisers – the people who sell the wine to our customers – have told me that they love the fact that now, when someone says ‘We are having Indian food tonight – what do I have with it?’, they just love that fact they got this bottle of wine [to recommend]. So there’s quite a nice link there and I think that’s why it’s worked quite well for us.

Dawson said the success of Indian wine on M&S shelves had a lot to do with consumers’ familiarity with the country and with ‘brand India’.

“There is an affiliation in the UK to India,” she said. “There is a sense that people are flying here from India, a lot of people go there on holidays… When people travel [to a different country] they tend to taste wines there, they tend to experience the culture and they want that bit of culture when they come home.”

Also at the roundtable discussion, Hallgarten Druitt’s Steve Daniel echoed Dawson’s view, revealing that Indian wine sales had increased “by about 20%” year-on-year since the company began importing from Sula Vineyards in 2005.

“We started with Sula back in 2005 as an importer. I think we were one of their first export markets. The reason I looked to Indian wine… there was a logical conclusion to me, that Indian food was the most popular cuisine in our market, the most popular take-home, whether it’s from a supermarket shelf or a take-away. We are more and more interested in wine, we want to get the right wine and the right food, so for me it was a no-brainer.

“It hasn’t been as successful as quickly as I thought it would be – it’s been more of a steady burner than an immediate success – but I’ve seen that gradually, year-on-year, our sales have increased by about 20%, which is good.”

Dawson pointed out that finding the right branding and labelling was essential to the success of Indian wine sales in a supermarket environment.

“In term of branding, one thing we find with the lesser-known countries we work with is that sometimes, when we go over to see the wineries, they show us presentations of bottles which are very discreet, because they want their wines to appear high quality, which I completely understand, but very much in a retail environment you want your wines to leap out at the customer. When there’s only one white Indian wine in a sea of 200 wines… a customer who has read about it in the press is going to get bored looking for it.

“We go for labels which, sometimes, producers who we work with think are a bit risky, but I think one of the reasons these wines become so successful is because they’re fun and they capture the spirit and the colour of the country.

“We try to achieve that a lot, not just for our Indian wines. The branding side is really important, and it’s a fine balance to strike, but if you get that balance right you get a really strong brand image.”

The roundtable discussion ‘Selling Indian Wine’ took place at the first ever Indian wine fair, held at the Millennium Conference Centre in Harrington Gardens, Central London, over the weekend of November 6-8.

The fair was organised by the Indian Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), and included wines from Charosa Vineyards, Fratelli Wines, Grover Zampa Vineyards, Sula Vineyards, York Winery and UK-based wine brand Soul Tree.

The fair included talks, workshops and masterclasses hosted by such wine industry personalities as Steven Spurrier, Peter Csizmadia-Honigh and Jane Parkinson.

Providing insight on the rising popularity of Indian Wines in international markets, Alok Mathur, co-founder of Soul Tree, said: “From our vantage point, in the UK we are witnessing first-hand the rapidly rising popularity of Indian wine in the country.

“Put the quality of the current crop of Indian wines with the sheer popularity of Indian cuisine and the integration of popular Indian art and culture in the fabric of society here, and it is easy to see why this is happening.”