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| Shamrao Chougule:Chairman, Champagne Indage |
Even a farmer likes his bubbly. Surprised? Don’t be. For Shamrao Chougule hails from a farmer’s family in Kolhapur, Maharashtra. And he has struck gold with champagne, though he is not allowed to call it that.
Chougule says he was always ordinary. He herded cattle, taught himself at a village school six kilometre away and dreamt of becoming a pilot. He took admission in an engineering college but chucked it midway to pursue his dream. He failed his pilot exam miserably. This also ended his honeymoon with his family. “My father made it clear that he couldn’t afford to support my flights of fancy and told me to get lost. My mother slipped in Rs 50 quietly,” laughs Chougule.
He ran away to Mumbai and started life as a commission agent. Here again he failed. After being unable to secure a single contract, he went back to his village (Narayangaon, Maharashtra) and pleaded with the chief engineer of the public works department to award him a contract.
That did the trick. Later, he set up shop and started exporting prefabricated structures. He got his first contract from Doha for 18 aircraft hangers.
On a business trip to Paris, he fell in love with the city. He also fell in love with French wine and decided to get into the business himself. Thus was born Champagne Indage (Chateau Indage).
The third-largest winemaker in France helped him in the enterprise. However, all this was not easy. It took more than guts and courage to take on a foreign product and to announce to the global consumer that India had arrived in this field.
Chougule’s ambition was to change the drinking habits of the Indian consumer. In those days wine was served only at Page 3 parties and upper crust bashes. But Chougule had to change his plans midcourse. Although his project was conceived for the domestic market, and import substitution, the Licence Raj compelled him to convert it to a 100 per cent export-oriented unit.
It was a Herculean task to promote and market Indian wines abroad in an environment of cut-throat competition. The others had centuries of vintage and financial muscle to boot. “When I decided to introduce Indian wines in the UK market, everyone predicted that I would fail. But here I am,” smiles Chougule.
Another problem with the wine business was the unavailability of institutional finance. Wine was accorded “negative priority”, according to the finance ministry’s guidelines. This was despite the fact that 100 per cent of the production was to be exported.
Not only that, there was a complete absence of working capital from the banks because of their ignorance of the wine industry, compelling the company to work with zero working capital till 2002.
The wine industry needs three years’ working capital initially as the process of producing champagne takes that much time. Banks in India were clueless about this.
The best thing about Chougule is that he has emerged a winner through these trials and tribulations. Says he: “It is wrong to escape and go abroad; the challenge is to be in India. The opportunities are all here and we just need to exploit that.”
And he’s made India proud. There are a number of firsts for him to show off. India became the first country from Asia to produce sparkling wine.
For the first time, wine was exported from Maharashtra; today Indian wines have made their presence felt in the UK, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, France, the US, Japan and Canada. It has also helped earn sizeable foreign exchange. And Champagne Indage Ltd is the first company to give value addition to the otherwise perishable grape crop.
Chougule believes in giving something back to society. The company has created direct employment for 1,000 families and indirect employment for thousands.
And Shamrao Chougule can afford to sparkle. In a span of 30 years, Indage has acquired a market share of 80 per cent for still wines, 100 per cent for sparkling wines and 100 per cent for the export of Indian wines. Cheers to that!
Based on a conversation with Shibani Chattopadhyay in Calcutta