Vineyard plans expansion into tourism

Backed by an NRI-led investor group, one of India’s leading wine makers, Grover Zampa Vineyards Ltd, is working on expansion plans, including hospitality services near Mumbai.

“We have backing of a Singapore-France based NRI investor-led group for the expansion programme which will include increasing wine yard acreage at Nandi Hills near Bangalore and at Nashik Valley as well as a hospitality business,” Grover Zampa newly appointed chief executive Vivek Chandramohan said on 25 April 2018.

VisVires Capital Asia of Singapore, led by Ravi Viswanathan, an NRI holding French citizenship, will increase its shareholding to 60 per cent in Grover Zampa on completing the latest investment, according to Chandramohan.

It currently holds 32 per cent stake in Grover Zampa, and is helping in the business expansion. Earlier this year, Viswanathan French winemaker family investment into Grover Zampa.

The hospitality services will include a hotel and set up for wine tours for tourists as well as local holiday makers, he said.

“We have identified 45 acres and are looking for another 50 acres for expanding the vineyards,” said Chandramohan who is presenting Indian wines made from French-origin grapes at the ProWine Asia 2018 being held 24-27 April 2018 in Singapore.

With acreage expansion, Grover Zampa will experiment cultivating Italian grapes as it increases wine production which was 200,000 cases in 2017, an increase of 18 per cent over 2016.

Grover Zampa exported about 15 per cent of its 200,000 cases of wines last year to Europe, the Americas and Japan.

While confident of increasing footprint in the global wine consuming markets, Chandramohan said he has introduced the Grover Zampa wines to Asian markets from Singapore.

For this year, Chandramohan expects 40 per cent increase in wine production at Grover Zampa which has won 113 global awards in the last five years.

“Our wines are rated among the best,” he added. fii-news.com