Raise A Toast! To This Investment Banker Who Turned Winemaker with Myra Vineyards

Ajay was an investment banker, who has worked with Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Daiwa Capital Markets. But subsequently got bored with the world of numbers and decided to switch fields and do something more creative. His interest in wines and being well-traveled added more fuel to his passion. “The foremost reason for turning to wine business is purely driven by passion. My interest first started during my days as a banker in Hong Kong where I developed a love for wines. Also, my stay in the United States gave me a good insight to global cuisine as well as great quality wines. So, I thought of turning my passion into a tangible asset, thus, Myra was conceptualized,” explains Ajay. Through Myra, Ajay aims to demystify what is otherwise considered a snobbish drink. “Wine is a drink we can all enjoy and I have set out on a mission to demystify wines and make the entire process uncomplicated. We want to enhance the wine drinking experience and make it taste better,” avers Ajay.

Team Myra

Ajay brings the passion to the business. He is assisted by Nikhil Agarwal, who is a trained sommelier and has more than 12 years experience in the field of wine and spirits. Nikhil has worked with brands like Moet Hennessy, Diageo and Sula Vineyards and works as the chief advisor and wine consultant for Myra. Myra’s most important job is held by Rajesh Rasal, who is the winemaker for the brand. With over a decade’s experience in the sector, Rajesh looks closely at raw material selection, determining the quality of grapes for winemaking, takes active participation in winemaking itself, making different styles of wines, determining quality parameters of wine, fining, stabilization and blending of wines and the actual tasting of the wine. He has worked with many wineries and has a good understanding of soil and climate needed to grow the best quality grapes.

The Myra team also has a growing sales and marketing team who’s responsibility is to improve the brand presence for Myra.

Building the Myra brand

Today the Myra label has four offerings – two each in red and white categories – which are all sold under the mother brand Myra Vineyards itself. Currently the wines are sold in Maharashtra and Karnataka. In Maharashtra, the wines are priced between Rs 570 to 630, while in Karnataka it is priced between Rs 620 to 650. Besides these two markets, Ajay is also looking to develop in Goa, Delhi and Eastern parts of India by the end of this year.

Ajay’s vision to demystify the drink has seen them adopt some unconventional techniques to spread the word. From organising community dinners for the LGBT community, the brand also sponsored the first ever real estate CREDAI Awards Care in Bengaluru. They are also supporting social causes and are associated with the Atma Foundation.

On the conventional side, Myra is very active on social media and has 10,000 fans on its Facebook page, within two months of launch. They also conducted their first sponsored Golf Tournament in Coorg recently – a favourite avenue or advertising by most liquor brands.

The opportunity

Ajay is ambitious when he says he wants Indians to consume wines on a daily basis. “There is still a large untapped market in India that creates a good opportunity for Myra to grow along. We want to become a more accessible and fun brand. At present wine is being consumed as a social drink but we want to make it more mainstream,” says Ajay ambitiously. Ajay says he is looking at the young Indian population to become connoisseurs for brand Myra. “Young Indians are very experimentative and would be willing to try the drink in a more unconventional way, than just as a social drink,” explain Ajay.

Currently, the startup is producing wines through contract farming with vineyards in Nasik (Maharashtra) and Bijapur (Karnataka) where the soil makeup is close to what they are looking at their own vineyard. At present, they are producing as per the demand which is more than 1 lakh litres. Going forward, Ajay plans to set up his own vineyard and is in the process of procuring and preparing about 70 acres of land in the Chickbalapur district of Karnataka. “We do not believe in mass production. At our vineyards when we start our own production we will be looking at a production 1.5 lakh and scaling it up to 10 million as per the consumption. But as we grow we will be looking at increasing the capacity. We want to take the brand to a scalable level by growing along the way without compromising on the quality,” explains Ajay.

Besides changing wine consumption habits in Indians, Ajay also wants to give customers another reason to choose Myra – wine tourism. “The time is ripe to promote wine tourism akin to that of France and Australia, and we hope we are able to achieve that in time. What will work in our favour is the short distance, as our vineyards at Chickbalapur are just 70 kms from the main city. There is huge potential that needs to be leveraged in the right manner,” says Ajay.

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