Setting a Cult of Sparkling Wine: Chandon India

CHANDON INDIA, part of Moet Hennessy, a French fine winery, has launched ‘My Chandon’ in Mumbai which is a 180 ml mini bottle to target the millennial. The philosophy of this new launch is to become a part of the consideration set of the young millennial, who comprise 66 percent of the population of India. The company aims to launch it further in Delhi and Bangalore. The first variant for the ‘My Chandon’ is the Brut which will be available in the selected retail outlets. BW Hotelier spoke to Stéphane de Meurville, Managing Director, Moët Hennessy, India to know more about his offerings and expansion plans.

Chandon forayed in India in 2013, bringing the trend of sparkling wine consumption which has shown a steady growth at the rate of 76.1 percent from 2013 to 2017 as per IWSR (The International Wine and Spirit Research) report. According to Meurville, the consumer choices have evolved from still varietals such as Chenin Blanc, Cabernet and Shiraz to sparkling varietals like Rosé and Brut. There has also been a marked increase in the collections available of Indian origin wines – including sparkling wines – at fine dining establishments across the country.

According to the reports, the consumption of Wine in India is found to be increasing with rise of awareness of wine as a good drink for health. The wine market of India observed growth with a CAGR of more than 25 percent in the past five years. Being one of the major players of the sparkling wine market in India, Chandon has seen a growth in sales at the rate of 14.1 percent in 2017 with the sale of 19250 cases in 2017. Chandon is also available in Sri Lanka and Nepal and will soon be available in Bhutan, as told by Meurville.

At Chandon India, the target audience is primarily xennials, who are born between the years 1977 to 1983. “Xennials who are travelling the world and coming back home to seek a global lifestyle right here in India, which is also affordable. It is with these Xennials that we have deeper engagements, by way of building the sparkling culture in the market, as they have both the willingness and ability to buy,” Meurville stated.

Speaking about the innovative marketing strategies, the wine company aims to become storytellers before being marketers. “In the five years since Chandon launched in India, we have broken many perceptions about sparkling wine by creating young, vibrant and innovative marketing programs to truly become “The Party Starter’ for Indian consumers. Another campaign we launched this year was ‘Try Me, I’m Chandon’, a program that helps us generate trial and recruit consumers through varied activations in the on-premise and augmenting the Chandon moment with interesting – and Instagram-worthy – service elements such as table service of the bottle and setting up photo booths and cool brand visual merchandising,” Meurville informed.

So far, Chandon has received good response from smaller markets like Goa, Bangalore and Hyderabad. For the further expansion plan, Chandon will mark its presence in Uttar Pradesh soon.