Wine-maker Grover to invest ₹100 crore in hotel business

Grover Zampa, the second largest wine manufacturer in the country, plans to invest about ₹100 crore to set up a premium hotel.

The company will build a 100-room five-star hotel in Nashik, Maharashtra, CEO Sumedh Singh Mandla told BusinessLine. A few international hospitality chains have already evinced interest in operating the hotel, he added.

Another such hotel is expected to come up near Bangalore.

Grover Zampa sells about 1.5 lakh cases of wine, while the leading wine-maker in the country, Sula Wines, sells over 6 lakh cases. The total size of the market is about 20 lakh cases a year. But 70 per cent of Grover Zampa’s sales come from the premium category, and the company is expected to turn profitable this year.

The total size of the liquor market in India is about 500 million cases every year.

The company has also tied up with former tennis ace Vijay Amritraj, who has invested in developing a wine brand named after him.

“We spent about two years in developing this product as we wanted to introduce a world class wine in the international market,” Amritraj said.

The product was launched during the recently concluded Wimbledon tournament and received rave reviews from wine critics, he said.

Grover Zampa expects to sell about 5,000 cases of this brand during the year with the price ranging from ₹1,100 to ₹1,200, depending upon the state where it is sold.

Mandla said the next two to three years will be crucial for the company as it will launch several products in the premium category. It will also expand into six more states and as many countries during this period. The company also expects to make sparkling wine from its Bangalore vineyard this year.

Though there is a lot of potential to grow in the Indian market, the industry is hampered by lack of unity among the wine makers.

The Government should promote wine as the industry provides good employment opportunities as well as helping the farmers to earn better, he said. China alone produces 250 million cases every year while Singapore, which is the size of a single metro in India, produces 2 million cases.

Though taxes were not a major issue with the industry, the cost of conducting business is huge, Mandla said.

“You can get a good quality wine in France for about $10, while in India for the same price, one can get an average quality wine.”

The promoters of Grover Zampa hold about 50 per cent stake in the company, while Reliance Capital and the others own the rest. It has a total of 400 acres of vineyard in Nashik and Bangalore.

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