The National Wine Festival, which concluded here on Monday, received an encouraging response from the wine lovers who had the choice to taste and buy varieties of fruit wine.
According to the Karnataka Grape Growers’ Association, which had organised the event along with the Karnataka Wine Board, over Rs.10 lakh worth transaction was recorded during the festival.
“We got good response from the people here. Vijayapura is not famous for consuming wine. However, people have accepted and enjoyed grape wine,” said Krishna Dikshit, one of the wine manufacturers, who participated in the wine festival.
Mahesh Patil, a government employee, who was buying a bottle of red wine, said that if promoted well, wine could become a good alternative to traditional liquor.
“ We all know the ill-effects of liquor ... but wine is not like normal liquor ... it tastes good and does not have ill-effects. The traditional alcohol lover should switch over to wine,” he said.
Discount
To encourage the buyers, the event had offered 10 per cent discount on wine.
T. Somu, Managing Director of the board, said that the objective behind organising the event was to popularise the wine industry in India which still needs a boost compared to the traditional liquor industry.
He informed that some 10 wine producers participated in the festival by selling around 150 varieties of wine in different flavours.
Though Mr. Somu admitted that compared to districts such as Bengaluru, Tumakuru, Shivamogga, Hassan and Kodagu, wine consumption was less in north Karnataka region.
Increase in production
Claiming that wine production has increased from 5 lakh liters to one core liters in a year in the last a few years, he said wine industry was recording a consistent growth of 30 per cent annually.
Mr. Somu said that fruit wine contains six to 16 per cent alcohol and added that fortified wine, that contains higher quantity of alcohol, was more popular among consumers.
