Alcohol majors go high on women guzzlers

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With about one-fourth of the country’s growth in alcohol sales till 2015 slated to come from women, alcoholic beverage companies have firmed up plans to tap this burgeoning segment.

Vijay Mallya-led United Breweries Ltd will be launching ‘Four Seasons’ range of wines. This brand will have six variants, out of which ‘Rose’ wine will be targeted towards women consumers.

UB will also promote tastings in the women’s group, club and get togethers.

“'We will employ a training manager to conduct tastings in order to educate about wine as a product and ways to enjoy and have better accessibility by using our vast distribution network,” Abhay Kewadkar, chief wine maker and business head (wine) at UB, said.

Nasik-based N D Wines Pvt Ltd which also sees woman as big segment will launch wines like N D Sparkling by July or August this year.

“We are introducing N D Chenin Blanc, a sweeter wine especially for women, with new packaging and new label. We are going to organise cooking competitions at various clubs in Delhi wherein the woman participants and the winners would be given wines,” R K Parihar, marketing head, N D Wines said.

According to Kewadkar, out of the 80 million people in the country, who drink alcoholic beverages women, constitutes 10%, which is likely to increase by at least 15-20%.

“Keeping women in mind we are introducing diet beer the test pilot of which is being carried out,” Poonam Chandel, managing director, Cobra Beer said.

The company which is planning to churn out diet beer at its Patna brewery will manufacture around 50 million cases in 2008-09. The beer firm will introduce diet beer in both western and northern market, targeting woman drinkers in the metro cities. Recently, UB launched Indian-made wines ‘Zinzi’, targeting woman guzzlers, Kewadkar said.