Low on alcohol, how wine is rising high on NE alcobev charts

One of country’s pioneering wineries launched the first Indian-made sparkling wine in the early nineties. Much to the amazement of the sales executives of the winery — the Champagne India Limited (CIL) — a dingy bar in a Mumbai slum was among the top of its clientele list.

When the top officials visited the bar to find what was propelling the sale in an unusual location for sparkler palate, it was a revelation of the country’s wine culture.

Uncorking the wine culture

“When we asked for feedbacks, the owner said he had been getting two complaints. First, the cork did not fit back after uncorking. Second, the customers were not quite sure whether to gulp it neat or with soda as there was no instruction on the bottle,” recalled Dhananjay Datar, an executive director of the All-India Wine Producers Association (AIWPA). Datar back then was a senior management official of the CIL.

The customers at the bar were opting for the wine as it came in a fancy bottle at a good price, which they perceived as a marker of good kick, he said.

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The wine culture in India has undergone a significant transformation since then with the projected consumption figure of 756.1 million litres, according to Statista, by the end of this year, growing at 30 per cent year-on-year to contribute significantly to the alcobev segment.

The alcoholic beverage (alcobev) industry contributes around 2 per cent to India's GDP, according to the statistics available for 2023-24 fiscal.

More importantly, the production has increased. Ninety per cent of the domestic demand is currently met by Indian wineries, Datar said.

The story is getting better as the brewing of wine is expanding beyond the country’s two major wine producing regions — Maharashtra and Karnataka.

Wine storm in Northeast

The latest to storm into India’s winery map is the remote, but picturesque northeastern region where traditionally the local tribes brew wine from locally grown rice and fruits for community consumption.

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The tradition is gradually evolving into an industry with incorporation of modern knowledge and technology. Some start-ups and local manufacturing companies have come up with exotic variants diversifying beyond the usual grape-based wine. It marks the beginning of the industrialisation of the region’s traditional arts of producing beverage.

The pioneer in this regard is Arunachal Pradesh, where the country’s first kiwi wine was brewed in 2017. The birth place of this unique beverage is Hong, believed to be Asia’s second-largest village nestled in the Himalayan state’s Ziro Valley.

Its birth is an interesting tale of addressing a sustainability challenge by upscaling traditional knowledge. It was scripted by an agriculturist-turned-entrepreneur Tage Rita to make better use of surplus kiwis grown abandoned in her village.

She started a boutique winery to produce the Kiwi wine under the brand name of Naara Aaba. It was her father-in-law’s name.

The boutique that started as an experiment today produces more than 60,000 liters of organic kiwi wine, supporting hundreds of farmers in the entire area.

The production has further been expanded with the introduction of wines extracted from guavas, pears and wild apples. Kiwi wine with ginger and guava wine with chilli are some very rare products brewed in her winery.

Meghalaya and Mizoram are the other two northeastern states promoting traditional winemaking culture in a big way to tap wider markets.

Facilitating business

The Meghalaya government started issuing licenses to winemakers by formulating ‘Manufacture and Sale of Home-Made Fruit Wines Rules, 2020’.

Prior to that the traditional fruit wines were produced only for household consumption or at the Shillong Wine Festival that started in 2004.

The history of commercial production of fruit wine in Meghalaya, however, goes back to 1947.

An officer of the British Indian army, Captain Harold Douglas Hunt, established a winery in Mawphlang area of the state after obtaining a license from the then Governor of Assam Akbar Hydari, according to a report of the Meghalaya Farmers’ (Empowerment) Commission.

The commission, a statutory body, is the first of its kind institution in the country mandated to serve as the bridge between the farmers and the government to make the farming sector more attractive and remunerative for the farmers and youth.

“The winery set up by Hunt produced the famous Mawphlang Cherry wine, and Cherry brandy and gained popularity across the country,” the report said.

The winery had to wind up after Hunt’s death. Commercial wine-making again started making a comeback in the state after the government in 2020 legalized the production and sale of homemade wines.

The MFEC is organising fruit wine making trainings for farmers, agripreneurs and winemakers to upscale the local produce to make them competitive. Around 100 winemakers have been trained so far. Some of them are undergoing internship in the wineries in Maharashtra.

“The Meghalaya government is very aggressively promoting winemaking in the state. We (AIWPA) have suggested to the Meghalaya officials that the state has good potential of producing ginger liquor,” Datar said.

In Mizoram, currently wine is produced from locally grown lubrusca grapes in the state’s Hnahlan and Champhai region. The largescale commercial production in the state has been deterred by the church-induced prohibition, which restricts the alcohol content beyond a certain permissible limit.

Even setting up of wineries were not permitted until the state government amended the excise laws in 2010 to allow grape processing.

The state in March this year enacted the Mizoram Liquor (Prohibition) Amendment Bill, 2025 to allow manufacturing and supply of wine and local beer made from locally produced agriculture and horticulture produces.

At present the state has two major wineries — Hnahlan Winery and Champhai Winery.

“The alcohol content will be plus or minus 15 per cent, keeping in mind the permissible limit set by the church,” said Mizoram Excise minister Lalnghinglova Hmar (popularly known as Tetea Hmar).

He refuted the concept that more alcohol content would make the wine better. “It is the making process and not the volume of added alcohol that is important,” he told The Federal.

The quality of wine production will be upscaled in terms of not only the quality of product but also packaging, marketing and branding to be a part of the competition, the minister said.

The Mizoram Science Technology and Innovation Council in collaboration with the AIWPA organised a national symposium and national workshop of production of wine to discuss the latest developments and challenges in wine production in the state. The even held on April 29 was funded by the North Eastern Council.

“The event provided a platform for knowledge sharing and collaboration among stakeholders in the wine industry,” said Francis Lalmalsawma Sailo, coordinator for NE regional chapter of the AIWPA.

To optimise the potential of the region’s wine sector procurement, supply chain and the marketing need to be streamlined.

Marketing is a huge challenge as direct advertising of alcoholic beverages is prohibited in India, pointed out Datar.

Currently, the prime wine market in India are the few cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Pune, apart from Goa. This is largely because the country does not have the culture of drinking refined wine, unlike the West.

“In the western countries, presenting wine bottle is part of popular culture. In India it is slowly picking up,” Datar said.

The promotion of the wine, which is a fruit-based alcoholic beverage could, reduce the spirit consumption, he added.