Champagne produced in India? Sounds unbelievable. The story of champagne from India is the story of the amazing entrepreneurial
spirit and patience of Shyamraj Chougule, a story of grit and patience. Chougule was in the construction industry as a young man, and used to visit Paris every month for business meetings. Meetings involved signing of contracts, invariably followed by celebrations with a bottle of champagne. Being the son of a farmer from Maharashtra (India) – which is well known for grape cultivation – Chougule felt that he should revive wine production in India. (India had been
producing its own wine from the 16th century up to the late 1800’s.) Chougule left the construction industry and decided to start a winery. There was disbelief and opposition in India, not to mention the scepticism of the French, whose help he sought. They declared that it was impossible to produce the quality grapes needed for producing champagne, in a tropical climate. When Chougule insisted that he could find a place in India, which had all the climatic and environmental conditions for producing quality grapes they relented. And he started Champagne India in 1982 in Narayangaon in Maharashtra. collaborating with Technologie Champagne of France. It took him seven years to produce the first bottle of sparkling wine! Four years to grow the plants to maturity, and another three to process and ferment the champagne. After that he discovered that he did not have a market, because wine drinking was not popular in India, and there were many tariff restrictions in the country. As for the western market, they laughed at the idea of a tropically grown and processed ‘champagne.’ Chougule spent six months in London trying to persuade distributors to sell his wine. But no-one was interested. He then started a distribution company of his own with the help of a Nigerian-Indian friend. He entered his wine in an
international competition, and in the first year it won a bronze medal, in the second a silver. Chougule says that his wine has even beaten the original champagne in international competitions.Today the Maharashtra government has cut excise duties on wines. Chougule has an international market, and can export the entire production. But his sparkling wines sell at affordable rates in the Indian market. He says he doesn’t need to give it the name of champagne. He doesn’t need to. They sell well. His products are the Marquise de Pompadour (sold as Omar Khayyam in the western market) Anarkali, Soma and many others, sold under the brandname 'Chateau Indage'. Let’s raise a toast to an amazing guy, who made the impossible possible. Cheers!