Wine and dine, then life is fine

The government's wine festival at Lalbagh inspired some silly rhyming, and sillier promotions

The government's wine festival at Lalbagh inspired some silly rhyming, and sillier promotions

Politicians came up with some rib-tickling lines at the government's wine festival which concluded at Lalbagh yesterday.

Hemachandra Sagar, MLA representing Chickpet, said: "Have wine and dine, then life is fine... 30 ml of wine every day is as good as medicine."

Cheers:u00a0 A wine display counter at the fest

"Grape picking is not an easy task," he added. "If the person picking grapes has fever, then it gets transferred to the grape and to the wine," he said, much to the amusement of Abhay Kewadkar, business head-wines and chief wine maker, UB Group, who was in the audience.

Horticulture minister Umesh V Katti, who inaugurated the three-day mela, forgot his party's general distaste for drinking, and said teenagers would soon get more varieties of wine to choose from.

"Overtake Maharashtra and even the world in wine production. Maharashtra growers have 68 vineries and Bangalore has only 9. In two to three years, we will overtake them," he thundered.

Myth and reality

The government plans to make wine popular by promoting it as a health drink.

The Karnataka Wine Board's statement says: "By providing a congenial atmosphere to the wine industry, giving up the thinking that wine is an alcoholic beverage and simplifying the taxation system, it is possible to boost the production and consumption of wines."

Even the purple posters designed for festival read, "Myth Wine is alcoholic; Reality Wine is non-alcoholic". And below, it said: "Wine has very little percentage of alcohol".

'Wine is non-alcoholic' is a new theory, and goes against what the world knows. Wikipedia says, "Wine is an alcoholic beverage typically made of fermented grape juice."

Licence fees

To make wine freely available, the licence fee for manufacturing has been slashed from Rs 50,000 to Rs 5,000, said Shanthakumari Sunder, additional chief secretary, development commissioner and chairperson of the Karnataka Wine Board.

She also said that the board had initiated the concept of taverns for which licences cost just Rs 1,000 and wine boutiques for which the licence fee was Rs 5,000.

The figures sound good but those actually trying to get licences say they end up paying Rs 35,000 to Rs 1 lakh for a wine tavern/boutique licence.

Whine fest
>>The wine fest at Lal Bagh, which ended yesterday, was really a lot of fizz.
>>There were only three stalls by Grover, Kinvah and Naka u2013 that made up the fest. Of course, freebies and discounts softened the disappointment. While Kinvah offered a discount of 20 per cent on their wines, Naka gave away wine-openers, T-shirts and coasters with every purchase and Grover offered a free wristwatch with every two bottles of wine.
>>Apart from the seminar, there was a wine-tasting session in the morning u2013 a coupon costing Rs 50 allowed you two glasses of wine.


A brawl over wine

What happens when three wine-lovers from opposing camps meet? They end up having a good-natured fight! We got B N Nanjundiah, MD, Naka Wines, and member of the Wine Board, Abhay Kewadkar, business head, wines and chief winemaker, UB Group, and Alok Chandra, wine expert, to take their gloves off.

Abhay: Why is there a discriminatory policy with only Karnataka wines being showcased?
Nanjundiah:It's tit for tat. We want Maharashtra to remove the 12.5 per cent VAT first, then we will consider. Once Maharashtra drops it, we will try and put pressure on the Centre. We are supporting wines grown only in Karnataka to give impetus to the industry. Let us enjoy the fruits for some time. Today, the market is about 25 lakh litres only. We want to reach at least 5 crore litres, like Maharashtra. By 2010, we will have 10 more vineries.

Abhay: How does one open a wine tavern or boutique?
Nanjundiah: You can open one right now. Twenty-one tavern licences have already been issued. This year, we will be giving 100 more.

Alok: Rs 1,000 is the actual fee, but no one gets it at that rate. People are paying in the range of a lakh to get a licence...
Nanjundiah: You can contact me directly and I will get it for you. Alok, you have come to see our drama, right? Meet my daughter, Soumya, the CEO of Naka wines.

Soumya: I have one wine tavern licence now. We can run a wine boutique also where we can allow tasting, apart from selling wines. We are also planning to open franchises across the city.