UP woos wine makers; Bareilly farm owner ready to roll out pilot project
The state govt is planning to facilitate a meeting of investors with wine producers where it intends to brief the them about the discounts on offer
LUCKNOW: If all goes as per plan, Uttar Pradesh’s first fruitbased winery would come up in Bareilly with a 55-year-old farm owner showing interest in the state government’s policy to promote winery.
The farm owner, Anil Sawhney, along with president of the All India Wine Producers’ Association (AIWPA) Jagdish Holkar and others held preliminary discussions with senior UP government officials and also submitted a proposal to start a winery in Bareilly which can serve as a model for others to emulate.
“I can visualise that after seeing the live model of our fruit wine project in Bareilly, not less than 25 farm-based fruit wineries will come up in the state over the next five years,” Sawhney told HT.
Fruit wines are essentially fermented beverages with low alcoholic content and are made from base ingredients or may even have additional flavours from fruits, flowers or herbs.
The process of making fruit wine is the same as any wine allowing yeast to sit on the sugars of fruits and become alcohol.
The state government is planning to facilitate a meeting of investors with wine producers where it intends to brief the investors about the discounts on offer, including waiving off the excise duty on such fruitbased wineries, which are also being looked at a model to revamp rural economy.
“In our discussions with wine producers we also gathered that wine can be made not just out of grapes but from other fruits like black plum (jamun), which have a very short shelf life and hence there is high wastage and conse
quent losses for the farmers. We gathered that wine could also be made from mangoes, guavas, apple, raspberry, peach and watermelon. Once fruit-based wineries arrive, producers of these fruits would get high prices and the rural economy would benefit,” said UP’s additional chief secretary Sanjay Bhoosreddy.
“We have also decided that wineries could engage in retail sale from their premises at a nominal license fee of Rs 50,000 only. We have allowed wine tasting for Rs 2,500 fee,” Bhoosreddy said. Provision for allowing sale of wine in hotels and restaurant bars,, including premium retail vends, model shops, foreign liquor and beer shops too has been made.
“I think the state’s wine policy has the capacity to revolutionize the farm sector, from promoting farm-based rural industry to generating rural employment, undertaking village tourism and ending wastage of perishable fruits. Above all, if we provide quality, which I think we can, then our wines will have global takers,” Sawhney said.
“What’s even better is that the wine industry is a zero-discharge industry with no pollution. Unlike regular scotch or liquor, wine has very little of alcohol and is actually very good for health. I am ready with my wine samples and as soon as I get the go ahead, we can start a small organic fruit winery from my farms in Bareilly,” Sawhney said.
“In Maharashtra, the wine policy has been in place for the past two decades and we are producing wine from grapes. In the northeast too, people are into fruit wine business. Now that UP has come up with a good wine promotion policy, I think we can help the farmers make profits by reducing wastage of fruits and generating good revenue for the state too,” said Holkar, who apart from being the AIWPA president, also runs a winery in Nashik.
Holkar said once wineries came up, ancillary industries would also emerge, providing employment opportunities.