Samruddha Salvi, Founder, Centennial Wineries Pvt Ltd

“Blisswines for Indian Cuisines”

The wine connoisseur has a new reason to look forward to every meal. Centennial Wineries Pvt Ltd has arrived on the scene with “blisswines” that will go well with Indian cuisine and taste buds. Samruddha Salvi our young entrepreneur and high priest of Bacchus explained the finer points of “blisswines” and his entrepreneurial roadmap.

Business idea- His idea is to field a product that is tailor made for the Indian market with international appeal. Salvi says “We are into wine manufacturing, where we make wines that goes best with Indian cuisine. We are at present into start-up stage, and are hopeful of getting into production through crushing of 2011. We are working out not only on selling wines in Domestic markets but also in international markets. And thankfully we have huge enquiries for the same not only from foreign distributors but also lot from Indian restaurants.”

What sets them Apart- The wine making business could learn a thing or two from Salvi. He has shrewdly saved himself a lot of financial worries. He explains “Over here we work on Virtual Winery concept. Where in without owning the winery we lease out all the resources of winery for our wine making. There by making huge saving on capital investment which we can deploy successfully on marketing and wine promotion. We also concentrate on wine for all to more of wine that suits best with Indian food.”

Future Plans - At presently they are on the lookout for angel funding to help them take the business to the next level. Salvi says “We plan to have a growth rate above 35% y-o-y. And will be achieving much higher than that over the next 4 years.”

“The vision for our enterprise is to establish itself as a well known brand that goes best with Indian food, and after which the growth not just in domestic market but also in International markets.”

His entrepreneurial Journey – Salvi has long since recognised that his true calling lay with self employment. He says “Well being an entrepreneur has always been a dream since beginning of college days. And I always love challenges in life, which makes life worth living than a regular routine of job.”

His first taste of entrepreneurship had started in college and he has never looked back. “I had started entrepreneurship way back when I was in my First year of B.Com, that time I was 18 and used to sell Laptops through partnership when laptops weren’t much popular with the people... and we had almost 10% of sales of the ACI computers (laptops division). So I always enjoyed challenges. But learned a fact that having a great start is not enough... you need to maintain the momentum and one can’t rest on laurels. You always need to keep on pursuing new goals / milestones.”

“So far the ride has been quite smooth, though the biggest challenge so far was to convince parents to let me work on a business plan completely different from the family business.”

Entrepreneurial lesson- Salvi has but a simple lesson to impart to anyone looking to take up the mantle of an entrepreneur. He speaks of a simple truth saying “biggest challenge for an entrepreneur is funding, it’s still not easy to get funding for a start-up, but once you prove yourself sky’s the limit.”

Yourstory wishes Samruddha Salvi many fine harvests and hopes to see the vintage of his entrepreneurial efforts adorn many a table.