Moët Hennessy's Chandon: now made in India

New Delhi: The world’s biggest champagne house, Moet Hennessy, has launched its first “made in India” sparkling wine as it seeks to capture a young, urban and increasingly sophisticated market of drinkers on the subcontinent.

The French champagne producer has invested in a new winery in Dindori near western Maharashtra state’s Nashik region, regarded as India’s wine-making heart.

Moet, owned by French luxury goods group LVMH, launched its Chandon India NV (non-vintage) Brut last month, saying it aimed to “build the sparkling wine culture” in the country.

“Chandon will be targeted at 25-to-35-year-old urban men and women who are interested in embracing an international lifestyle while taking pride in all that’s Indian,” said Jean-Guillaume Prats, president of Moet Hennessy Estates and Wines.

The Chandon range will be the first offering from the new Indian Moet Hennessy estate, which must convince whiskey-loving high-end Indian consumers to switch from the grain to the grape.

Prats told AFP that as a foreign company, Indian law prohibits the firm from owning its vineyards “so we source grapes from Nashik farmers”.

Nashik, around a four-hour drive northeast of Mumbai, has dozens of wineries and is known as the “Napa Valley of India” in reference to the Californian region famous for its vineyards.

Moet, which has also produced a Chandon Brut Rose made from Shiraz and pinot noir for the Indian market, selected an area 565 metres (1,850 feet) above sea level just north of Nashik which boasts lower temperatures and less precipitation than on the coast in order to obtain a high quality grape and produce a crisp and dry brut.

While all champagnes are sparkling wines, all sparkling wines are not champagne—that name being legally reserved for wines produced in the Champagne region of France.

A nascent market with potential

The sparkling wine market in India is still embryonic in size. The wider Indian wine market grows by 15% to 20% a year and should continue to grow at this rate in the coming years, Indian wine consultant Alok Chandra told AFP.

About 18 million litres of wine are sold every year in India but the “sparkling wine market, locally produced or imported, makes up less than 10% of this volume,” Chandra added.

Moet also has rivals in the sparkling market. India’s Fratelli Wines group, an alliance of Indian and Italian families, launched its own sparkling wine last month but says it is not expecting immediate big returns.

“It’s a nascent market. Patience is necessary,” Fratelli Wines director Kapil Sekhri told AFP.

Another player is Sula Vineyards, India’s largest wine company, founded in 1997 in Nashik by a Silicon Valley engineer named Rajeev Samant, who quit his hi-tech job and started a winery.

Sula last month came out with three variants of its premium sparkling wines.

“Sparkling wine is seen as a celebratory wine (in India) with a wider audience than wine,” said Fratelli’s Sekhri.

Moet’s Chandon India NV is made from a combination of chenin blanc, chardonnay and pinot noir.

“We’ve put in place long-term partnerships with farmers who, in turn, work closely with our viticulturists to ensure a superior grape quality,” Prats said.

Savvy marketing techniques, such as sponsorships and wine-tasting events, are crucial for vineyards in India.

Advertising alcohol is banned and each state imposes its own, often crippling, taxes and regulation.

Over the past decade, Indian wines have become increasingly popular in the country as their quality has improved and the number of wine magazines has mushroomed.

But wine drinking is still largely confined to upmarket bars, hotels and restaurants in cities and affluent private social events.

“There is a larger market scope for sparkling wines in India, said Chandra.

The so-called “bubbles” category in India “has had very little competition,” he added.

Moet’s Chandon NV is priced at Rs.1,200 ($19) a bottle, costlier than its nearest rival priced at Rs.950 offered by Sula, which has a dominant share of India’s wine market.

But the price is well below the Rs.4,500 per bottle charged for the foreign-made Moet Chandon Brut Imperial Champagne, making it much more affordable for Indian fizzy wine fans

Food & Wine

Moët Hennessy launches Nashik made Chandon

Game changer. This is the best way I can describe Chandon, Möet Hennessy’s Indian made sparkling wine. Game changer, because of several reasons. Quality, the price points and the brand equity it brings to the table.

Moët & Chandon recognized that other winegrowing regions outside France’s Champagne region had potential for creating high quality sparkling wine worthy of their name and first setup a winery in Argentina in 1959, followed by California (1973), Brazil (1973) and Australia (1986) and now India.

When asked why India, Bruno Yvon, Managing Director Moet Hennessy India, mentioned that it was in Möet’s DNA to look for new regions and terroir to make wine and Nashik fit the bill. The decision was made in 2009 and the first harvest took place in 2011.

There is another aspect for them to produce a local sparkling in India. Moët & Chandon would easily be the most recognizable champagne brand not only globally but also in India. It’s what we see at most Champagne brunches in the country, it’s the most common Champagne by the glass on wine lists, and even people who don’t drink wine recognize the label. With Chandon, Möet Hennessy will tap into a much larger wine drinking audience which does not need to think twice before picking up a domestic sparkling. Finally the focus can be on retail and not just restaurants and hotels, which was mostly the case with Champagne.

India now has two new méthode traditionnelle sparkling wines in the market, Chandon Brut and Chandon Brut Rosé. I was expecting both wines to be excellent and deliver more structure and complexity on the mid palate, which they did very well.
Chandon Brut
The Brut is an assemblage of Chenin Blanc, Pinot Noir and the all important Chardonnay. Though official figures aren’t available, multiple sources have pointed in the direction that Chandon has managed to procure almost all available Chardonnay in Nashik from grape growers.
Nose : Aromas of pear, green apple,  toasted bread and a hint of honey and vanilla.
Palate : A lot of fruit right away which gets more evident on the mid palate. Creamy texture, plenty of underlying vanilla and toasty notes just like the palate. Lovely crisp finish with some green apple. Chardonnay here is doing the trick very well for Chandon, giving the wine very good structure and Chenin Blanc is bringing in the fruit.

Chandon Brut Rosé
The Rosé is mostly Shiraz based with some amount of Pinot Noir. More than the Brut, I believe the Rosé is a Nashik terroir driven sparking.
Nose : Aromas of strawberry and cherry
Palate : Excellent concentration of red fruit on the palate, slight spice, underlying hints of tobacco on the finish. Like with the Brut, its got good structure with excellent acidity and a creamy texture. Long finish like no other Indian sparkling that I have tasted till now.

Brut is priced at Rs. 1200 and the Rosé at Rs. 1400. Excellent wines and affordable prices, it simply can’t get better than this. The sparkling wine market in India is finally becoming a lot more interesting. Apart from Sula and Zampa, we have Chandon followed by Fratelli launching a sparkling as well.

Yesterday when I took my first sip of Chandon along with the Moet Hennessy team and fellow journalists and industry people, you could sense the excitement all around, it was a special moment. Chandon is a big deal and I am sure the wines will just get better year after year. Another major impact of Chandon might be wine tourism to Nashik, once their winery would be ready in the first quarter of 2014.

In a way this is also validation that India can make world class wines.