Marks & Spencer Selects Sula's Jewel of Nasik Trio As First Indian Wines On Its Portfolio

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

JUST A couple of days back, Sameer Sain, Managing Partner of the Indian and South-East Asian private equity fund, Everstone Capital, was quoted by The Times of India waxing ecstatic about Sula Vineyards Founder-CEO, Rajeev Samant, after exiting Nashik Vintners, the wine brand's parent company, with Rs 114 crore on an investment of Rs 37 crore made in August 2007.

"Nashik Vintners and brand Sula under Rajeev Samant's leadership has seen unprecedented success over the last several years," Sain said. Sula's revenue vaulted by more than 500 per cent over the last few years, even as the company maintained healthy operating profits. Sain also reminded the newspapers readers that Sula's distribution footprint now covers over 400 cities spanning across 23 states in the country.

Add Britain's top retailer, Marks & Spencer, to this formidable footprint and Samant has a good reason to pop open a bubbly. M&S has decided to sell Sula's three Jewel of Nasik wines -- Sauvignon Blanc, Zinfandel Rose and Tempranillo Shiraz -- priced at £6.99 a bottle and sporting a colourful label at 250 stores across the UK. It's a significant milestone for the company, which straddles 70 per cent of the country's wine market and exports its products to 25 countries, and for the country, because it gives Indian wine an enviable international platform that can only lift its reputation across the world. The UK, incidentally, is Sula's biggest market outside India.

Interestingly, the Marks & Spencer announcement came days after Samant presented a candid assessment of the country's wine market, balancing the opportunities with the Himalayan challenges, at the Eighth International Symposium organised by the Institute of Masters of Wine in Florence on May 15-18.

And of course, it's raining good news for Samant, with the Nashik Vintners now being valued at Rs 700 crore, after the Belgian family office Verlinvest, Anil Ambani's Reliance Capital and VisVires India Wineries have jointly acquired Rs 275 crore stake in the company. According to The Times of India, Reliance Capital and VisVires India Wineries -- the latter owned by Singapore- based Ravi Vishwanatan -- will now hold a 29 per cent stake in the company. Verlinvest, a Belgian family office belonging to the founders of beer giant Anheuser Busch InBev, will increase its stake to 23 per cent.

Commenting on the Marks & Spencer decision, Samant could not hide his excitement. “It is a proud day for us and for Indian wines and reflects the broader surge in the acceptance of our wines in this most competitive market," he said in a media statement. "Nasik, the region that we founded, is on its way to becoming a world-renowned wine region," he added.

Emma Dawson, Marks & Spencer’s Wine Buyer, joined the celebrations by stating: "We are very excited about offering customers our very first Indian wines. We’ve created these wines to be suitable to drink as an aperitif or in styles that match well with Indian food." Well, it's time for all Indian wine lovers to raise a toast to the country's wine leader.

Singapore's Iconic Harry's Bar Opens in New Delhi's Select Citywalk After Mumbai Debut

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

WHEN Harry's Bar opened at Boat Quay in Singapore in 1993, named presumably after the Venetian watering hole immortalised by Ernest Hemingway, or the ones in London and New York, the island-nation didn't have much of a nightlife to write home about. This little hangout by the Singapore river, opened by an American expat named Jim Gelpi, brought live music, cool vibes and the culture of the after-office tipple to Singapore, and it soon became the favourite of punters of all nationalities making and breaking fortunes in the neighbouring financial district.

One of them was Nick Leeson, the derivatives trader who made world history by single-handedly bringing down Barings Bank racking up losses of over $1 billion in 1995. A colourful character who had been turned out of the Singapore Cricket Club because of a racist slur, Leeson loved the drink that is now famous as the Bank Breaker -- one part each of whisky and the melon liqueur Midori and two parts of soda water. When Leeson stepped out of prison in Singapore in 1999, the patrons of Harry's got free beer for two hours and the waiting staff wore T-shirts that said: "Leeson Learns His Lesson".

There was another regular too -- he came to the bar five evenings a week. He was Mohan Mulani, a Singaporean Sindhi who had returned from America after getting a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and History from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), and spending a year as a management trainee at IBM. He was working for his family business, whose office was nearby, and he fell in love with the place. So much in love, that he invested in the place after overcoming Gelpi's initial reluctance. Within a year, the original shareholders had a falling out, so Mulani just bought them out.

Harry's Bar has been around for 20 years and

The original Harry's Bar at Boat Quay, Singapore,
was opened by an American in 1993

is one of Singapore's acknowledged icons. Expanding to 26 outlets (plus five associated restaurants and a 22-room boutique hotel) under Mulani's leadership, Harry's Bar is a Singaporean success story with its own premium lager and a vast fan following. In its early years, it survived the collapse of Transco Holdings, the textiles and investments company Mulani had set up with his father on his return from America, after the South-East Asian economies went into a tailspin in 1997. A heart-broken Mulani had then left for San Francisco to start a new life, but he returned to his home country after 9/11, unable to stand the atmosphere of fear and loathing in America, and did not look back after he opened the second Harry's Bar in 2003.

And now, Harry's Bar, after a successful launch at Powai in Mumbai, has opened at the Select Citywalk in Saket, New Delhi, next to Spaghetti Kitchen on the second floor. Mulani continues to be the Executive Chairman of Harry's Holdings, but his and his wife's stake in the company has been picked up by Everstone Capital, an investment firm started by two former Goldman Sachs executives, both Indian. Everstone has substantial investments in the restaurant sector in India and the Indian foray of Harry's Bar clearly is the result of the interest the investment firm has in this market.

With the opening of Harry's Bar, whose cocktails have been designed for the local market by the acclaimed mixologist, Shatbhi Basu, the Select Citywalk second floor has grown into a gourmet zone, with old favourite Spaghetti Kitchen, the classy vegetarian restaurant Sattvik, the ever-popular Mamagoto and the revitalised Punjab Grill, which now has a brilliant new menu designed by yet another Manish Mehrotra acolyte, Gurdeep Singh (you'll read more about it soon).