The Hindu Business Line : Chile keen on selling wine to India

IF there are connoisseurs of fine wine, who are also good story writers, this is for them. They may soon get invited to Chile for an exhaustive wine tasting session, provided they are willing to write ballads on the virtues of the Chilean wine.

Wine and tea may be as far apart as eggs and apples, but international trade seems to be the great leveller here.

Chile is keen on promoting its world class wines in India, and also buy Indian tea, preferably organic tea, if the Tea Board can put together a tea trade mission to South America to scout for new opportunities.

Talking to Business Line here, after making a presentation on his country's economic strengths, and also why the Financial Times of London labelled Chile as the strongest economy in South America in one of its reports, at a CII meet hosting two Ambassadors, Mr Jorge Heine, Ambassador of Chile to India, said it was the best of Chilean wines that need to come to India.

Wine exports by Chile now fetch only $600 million (about Rs 2,718 crore) annually, out of a total export basket of $20 billion (about Rs 90,620 crore), with copper alone taking up some $8 billion (about Rs 36,240 crore), but the glamour and value added attached to wine as compared to say fish meal, is much greater, Mr Heine said.

Chile produced a great variety of world-class wines, mainly owing to its sizeable grapes production, he added.

Known more for its prowess in copper, housing a fourth of the world's total production of the metal, Chile has also emerged as a major wine producer in the region, exporting large quantities to Europe.

He said as part of a novel initiative being finalised by the Government in Santiago, a blue print was being readied to invite experts on the subject, or at least those who write about good wine and food in publications, all the way to Santiago to educate them on the Chilean wine.

Incidentally, Chile is one of the largest exporters of fresh fruits in South America, accounting for some $2 billion (about Rs 9,062 crore).

The ambassador said "we already have 22 distributors of our classical wines in India, but these are not so freely available for those who seek them at retail outlets.

The exercise being planned, as a precursor to full fledged marketing, is basically to introduce the product to the Indian market and then see if proper marketing channels could be established as joint ventures or even as solo ventures.

An imported quality wine is a costly proposition, but once a kind of awareness is created about the possibilities of accessing such a product in the open market, then this may well open up new trade channels, Mr Heine pointed out. Such wine tasting missions have been carried out in Europe, the true market for these, but when it happens, will be the first such in Asia, it is learnt.

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