The death of a winery?

Its much hyped Marquise de Pompadour or MDP as it came to be known in trade circles evokes equal amount of awe and derision, depending on just what kind of a wine buff are you. Today, as Indage Vintners – the makers of MDP – battle it out in the courts to prevent creditors from winding up the company and probably liquidating their holdings, there is perhaps a certain bit of curiosity, tinged maybe with a dash of tragic romanticism. Curiosity at how did things go so horribly wrong at India’s first branded wine maker that just a couple of years back was cruising along to become a global player in the wine making and selling business. Did it grow too fast, through its sundry acquisitions and ended up stretching its balance sheet beyond breaking point? Maybe.

Champagne Indage, as the company was known for the better part of its existence, may not have made wines that would become a collector’s prized possession or fetch eye-popping amounts at auctions of vintage wines. In fact, it can safely be said that the company was never in the business of making vintage wines – wines that would last not just a few years but maybe even a few generations. That’s an art honed to the level of a science by Europe’s vineyards. What it did was to probably bust the myth that wines could not be made in a tropical country like India, where apart from the challenge of the weather, there was also the challenge of the (in)famed Indian palate that preferred ‘hard’ drinks that gave a ‘kick’. Wine was wishy-washy, wussy and womanish, according to hardened palates. Without overtly planning to do so, Champagne Indage (now called Indage Vintners) changed all that and even inspired others to get into the business of wine making – today there are over 50 big and small wine producers and wineries in India, most of them in Maharashtra.The company, which made its first overseas acquisition when it bought Australia’s Thachi Wines for Australian $ 15 million in early 2007 (a company thrice its size in terms of production capacity), set its sights on having a complete portfolio of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. That included a planned acquisition of a Europe based vodka brand, the buy-out of UK’s Darlington Wines, a wine supplier and a planned entry into the fruit juices and mineral water segment. Did the company, like many others around the globe, get caught in the all-izz-well syndrome of the boom times? That could well be the case, as it struggles with what can be termed as its last lifeline to stay afloat – the stay order on its winding up granted by the Mumbai High Court for 15 days. If that happens, the writer of this blog – a teetotaller to boot – will perhaps say cheers with a bottle of Indage’s finest MDP.A cork out?

The much hyped Marquise de Pompadour or MDP as it came to be known in trade circles, evokes an equal amount of awe and derision, depending on just what kind of a wine buff are you. Today, as Indage Vintners – the makers of MDP – battle it out in the courts to prevent creditors from winding up the company and probably liquidating their holdings, there is perhaps a certain bit of curiosity, tinged maybe with a dash of tragic romanticism. Curiosity at how things went so horribly wrong at India’s first branded wine maker that just a couple of years back was cruising along to become a global player in the wine making and selling business. Did it grow too fast, through its sundry acquisitions, ending up stretching its balance sheet beyond breaking point? Maybe.

Champagne Indage, as the company was known for the better part of its existence, may not have made wines that would become a collector’s prized possession or fetch eye-popping amounts at auctions of vintage wines. In fact, it can safely be said that the company was never in the business of making vintage wines (wines that would last not just a few years but maybe even a few generations). That’s an art honed to the level of a science by Europe’s vineyards. What it did was to probably bust the myth that wines could not be made in a tropical country like India, where apart from the challenge of the weather, there was also the challenge of the (in)famous Indian palate that prefers ‘hard’ drinks that gave a ‘kick’. Wine was wishy-washy, wussy and womanish, according to hardened palates. Without overtly planning to do so, Champagne Indage (now called Indage Vintners) changed all that and even inspired others to get into the business of wine making – today there are over 50 big and small wine producers and wineries in India, most of them in Maharashtra.

The company, which made its first overseas acquisition when it bought Australia’s Thachi Wines for Australian $ 15 million in early 2007 (a company thrice its size in terms of production capacity), set its sights on having a complete portfolio of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. That included a planned acquisition of a Europe based vodka brand, the buy-out of UK’s Darlington Wines, a wine supplier and a planned entry into the fruit juices and mineral water segment. Did the company, like many others around the globe, get caught in the all-izz-well syndrome of the boom times? That could well be the case, as it struggles with what can be termed as its last lifeline to stay afloat – the stay order on its winding up granted by the Mumbai High Court for 15 days. If that happens, the writer of this blog – a teetotaller to boot – will perhaps say cheers with a bottle of Indage’s finest MDP.