![\"\"](\"https:\/\/th-i.thgim.com\/public\/life-and-style\/qapvue\/article68867005.ece\/alternates\/SQUARE_80\/Something%E2%80%99s%20brewing%20in%20the%20Northeast%20.png\")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nLyang B. Sangma was understandably on edge when his te.gism product was among six exotic fruit wines and meads \u2014 alcoholic beverages made by fermenting honey \u2014 chosen by the Meghalaya Farmers Empowerment Commission (MFEC) to showcase at the Vinexpo India 2024 in Mumbai this September. \u201cI had my heart in my mouth whenever an expert or connoisseur sipped the te.gisim wine and rolled his or her tongue over it. The reaction from almost all of them was that my product has possibilities beyond my hometown of Tura and other parts of Meghalaya,\u201d says the entrepreneur.<\/p>\n
![\"Lyang](\"https:\/\/th-i.thgim.com\/public\/incoming\/3s639i\/article68880695.ece\/alternates\/FREE_1200\/Dura%20wine.jpg\" "\\"Lyang")
<\/div>\n\n
Lyang B. Sangma of Dura Wine\n <\/p>\n
<\/div>\n Situated on low hills, Tura is the economic and administrative hub of the western part of Meghalaya, dominated by the Garo community, and about 300 km west of state capital Shillong. Most Garo families are used to brewing\u00a0bitchi<\/i>, a smoky rice beer made from local sticky rice. After observing elders do the fermentation process, Lyang began experimenting with other grains and wild fruits. He concentrated on exotic fruit wines, producing them mostly for consumption among family and friends and for gifting during Christmas and other festivals. Sensing an opportunity, he went commercial with his Dura Wines in 2021, a year before another entrepreneur, Keenan Marak, from the Garo Hills launched 7 United, a canned, carbonated\u00a0bitchi.<\/p>\n Lyang\u2019s winery, set up with a machinery grant of \u20b925 lakh from the Shillong-headquartered\u00a0North East Centre for Technology Application and Reach,\u00a0has since been producing wines from seasonal fruits such as gooseberry, pineapple, cherry, silverberry, bayberry, black plum, and jackfruit, apart from the traditional\u00a0bitchi<\/i>\u00a0in a bottled avatar. While the bayberry offers a sweet note,\u00a0the jackfruit wine is pungent and an acquired taste. The demand, however, has been more for the dark red te.gism, almost equalling that for the blood-red te.patang that fellow Tura-based winemaker Pecindha K. Sangma has been churning out under her Asame brand.<\/p>\n \n Pecindha K. Sangma of Asame wines\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n Te.patang is the Garo name for the sweet and sour\u00a0blood fruit\u00a0(Haematocarpus validus<\/i>). \u201cThe popularity of this fruit encouraged me to make wine\u00a0from it along with other fruit wines like strawberry, peach, plum, pear, jamun, and mulberry.\u00a0I produce an average of 40 litres of season-based fruit wines a month. What has also caught the imagination of consumers in Meghalaya and elsewhere is the blue wine made from the butterfly pea flower,\u201d Pecindha says.<\/p>\n \n Asame\u2019s blue wine made from the butterfly pea flower.\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n From being an occasional winemaker, Pecindha transitioned to producing wines on a commercial scale from her home in 2023. Villagers collect honey for mead from the forests, much like they do fruits. \u201cPeople here make a tea-like beverage from the butterfly pea flower. I thought of infusing it with honey wine and through trial and error and with advice from experts, I found the right balance with no added sugar,\u201d she says. Many of these entrepreneurs have made the switch following periodic consultations with Priyanka Save of Himachal Nectars, roped in by the MFEC as the official training partner for certification courses.<\/p>\n \n Non-indigenous fruits like orange, strawberry and pineapple are also used in wine-making in Meghalaya. <\/span><\/div>\n Today, Meghalaya has about 30 fruit winemakers (mostly in Shillong and Tura), of whom 17 have transitioned to commercial production with modern, scientific equipment. (Traditional rice wine makers are in the thousands.)\u00a0All but three of the 17 have established wineries and started branding their wines over the last two years; the other three are in the process of scaling up their facilities. The average cost of setting up a winery of 5,000-litre capacity is \u20b950 lakh, excluding the land and buildings. About 400 families, including winemakers, farmers, and farm workers, are directly or indirectly employed by the licensed wineries.<\/p>\n The shift to commercial winemaking may have happened only in the last two to three years, but the process to streamline the industry has taken two decades. It began with Michael Syiem of the Shillong-based Forever Young Club organising the city\u2019s first wine festival in 2004 to showcase an array of wines made from indigenous fruits and vegetables. \u201cThe annual event made our people take fruit winemaking seriously. Millennials found the exotic wines cooler than expensive grape wines, which they associated more with the older generations. The push came after our commission, the only one of its kind in the country, was established in 2019 to represent the voices of farmers and formulate policies and programmes for agriculture, food processing, and value chain development,\u201d says B.K. Sohliya, chairman of the MFEC.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n Unlike grapes, which have wine-grade varieties, Meghalaya\u2019s indigenous fruits such as sohiong (Prunus nepalensis<\/i>), sohphie (Myrica esculenta<\/i>), sohshang (Elaegnus latifolia<\/i>), sohphlang (Flemingia vestita<\/i>) and sohphoh khasi (Docynia indica khasiana<\/i>) grow naturally, barring the few introduced species such as strawberry, pineapple and orange that grow in plantations. All are single-variety; what\u2019s consumed as fruit is also used for making wine.<\/p>\n \n About 400 families are directly or indirectly employed by the licensed wineries in Meghalaya. <\/div>\n Many of these wild fruits are protected in the sacred groves of Mawphlang, a village about 25 km southwest of Shillong. No one is allowed to take anything \u2014 not even a fallen leaf \u2014 from the groves that became a tourist attraction after a British army officer set up India\u2019s first winery in the village in 1947.<\/p>\n Capt. Harold Douglas Hunt, considered the father of wine in Meghalaya, settled down in Mawphlang and obtained a license to make his Mawphlang cherry wine and brandy a household name in the state. He mobilised villagers to collect sohiong and other wild fruits from beyond the sacred groves, and created a well-oiled ecosystem wherein local farmers, producers, and artisans coordinated to sustain the winery until it ceased operation in the 1980s after his death.<\/p>\n \n Ritual monoliths at the entrance of the Mawphlang sacred forests in Meghalaya. <\/div>\n Forty years later, Capt. Hunt\u2019s house \u2014 a deep green cottage barely 2 km from the sacred groves \u2014 is abuzz again. Hunt\u2019s grandson, Andrew Nongdhar, has overhauled his winery to produce the \u201cold popular wine\u201d in new bottles \u201cas soon as possible\u201d. \u201cMany were inspired by my grandfather to brew wines from fruits and vegetables such as ginger, but winemaking remained a small-scale activity until recently.\u00a0Entrepreneurship, a change in mindset, and a proactive government combined to help the winemakers transition to commercial production. Failing to capitalise on this trend would have been an injustice to the man who started it all,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n In September 2020, the Meghalaya Excise Rules (Assam Excise Rules 1945) were amended to legalise home-made wines and provide licences to local winemakers to go commercial. \u201cChief Minister Conrad K. Sangma and a team of officers like our former chairman, K.N. Kumar, played a major role in giving shape to the fruit wine industry in Meghalaya. From five licensed fruit winemakers three years ago, we have 17 today \u2014 the second-highest in the country after Himachal Pradesh, which has 22,\u201d says Sohliya.<\/p>\n The government also organises \u2018Beyond the Grape\u2019 shows to introduce wine lovers from elsewhere to Meghalaya\u2019s fruit wines, while the MFEC has established the North East Fruit Wine Incubation Centre, a pioneering training facility for winemakers with an installed capacity of 1,000 litres per cycle, at the Institute of Hotel Management, Catering Technology and Applied Nutrition on the outskirts of Shillong. Since its establishment in 2023, the institute has trained 137 people, mostly from the Northeast, in the\u00a0\u201cart of winemaking that is mostly science\u201d as Sohliya says\u00a0\u2014 from fruit to bottled beverage in 90 days.<\/p>\n \n \u00a0A restaurant that offers wine for tasting in Shillong. <\/span><\/div>\n According to Rajesh Swarnakar, professional wine and spirit taster, the quality of Meghalaya\u2019s fruit wines has improved markedly in texture and taste, with a better balance of sugar and alcohol (10% ABV). \u201cCurrently, Meghalaya\u2019s fruit wines have some distance to catch up with fruit wines from Himachal Pradesh, where they are mostly made from apples. But then, fruit winemakers in Himachal have been in the business for years with good government support while the Meghalaya government has become involved recently,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The popularity of Meghalaya\u2019s wines is growing, believes Swarnakar, as more tourists seek them out from the shelves of liquor outlets in Assam and Meghalaya. The average cost of a 750 ml bottle of fruit wine is \u20b9600.<\/p>\n The winemaking \u2018renaissance\u2019 in Meghalaya has also entailed taking homemakers, farmers and entrepreneurs on exposure trips to the winemaking hubs of Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh. One such farmer, Bording Ioannis Shylla, has set up the state\u2019s largest winemaking unit (10,000-litre capacity) at Mawkyrwat, about 75 km southwest of Shillong, to produce and market his brand, Damad, with his winemaker wife, Meldorah Wanniang. The couple has acquired 60 acres of land for farming, and they also coordinate with nearby villages for bulk supply of fresh fruits.<\/p>\n \n Farmer Bording Ioannis Shylla (in white) at his winemaking unit in at Mawkyrwat.\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n Says Sohliya: \u201cOne of the factors behind the stress on winemaking was to check the wastage of fruits and vegetables. Meghalaya\u2019s terrain does not allow large-scale farming, and farmers here invariably cannot sell all they grow or collect from the jungles. Their fruits of labour often rot; the rate of wastage is similar to India\u2019s average of 40% for fruits and vegetables throughout the supply chain.\u201d<\/p>\n He adds, \u201cWastage has come down substantially with winemakers booking farms or trees a year in advance as a winemaker needs a tonne of fruit to produce 200 litres of wine. A farmer who earned \u20b93,000 per sohiong tree now makes \u20b915,000 a season, while kiwi, plum, peach, pineapple, orange, and jackfruit farmers have upped their income from \u20b930,000 to more than \u20b93 lakh per season. There has also been a shift from gathering fruits from the jungle to farming them.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Dajied Shabong (left), founder of Kynjai Wine. <\/span><\/div>\n Agreements with farmers are fuelling urban wine startups such as Shillong\u2019s Kynjai Wine launched by Dajied Shabong. \u201cFrom procuring fruits from farmers and bottles from Mumbai to the final packaging, winemaking is a complex process, but rewarding for the soul. Our wines are on par with those produced elsewhere in India, if not the world. Things are moving fast in Meghalaya and we hope to upgrade from selling from home to supplying to stores in the Northeast soon,\u201d says Shabong.<\/p>\n For Michael Syiem, acknowledged as the man who sparked the winemaking movement in recent history, the industry in Meghalaya is heading in the right direction. \u201cThe enabling atmosphere and the entrepreneurial drive of a few are making it possible,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n rahul.karmakar@thehindu.co.in<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n17 winemakers go commercial<\/h4>\n
![\"Pecindha](\"https:\/\/th-i.thgim.com\/public\/incoming\/xgn3ao\/article68880698.ece\/alternates\/FREE_1200\/WhatsApp%20Image%202024-11-06%20at%2010.53.26%20AM.jpeg\" "\\"Pecindha")
<\/div>\n![\"Asame\u2019s](\"https:\/\/th-i.thgim.com\/public\/incoming\/99zpw7\/article68871715.ece\/alternates\/FREE_1200\/WhatsApp%20Image%202024-11-06%20at%2010.53.27%20AM.jpeg\" "\\"Asame\u2019s")
<\/div>\n![\"Non-indigenous](\"https:\/\/th-i.thgim.com\/public\/incoming\/5ciduj\/article68871717.ece\/alternates\/FREE_1200\/Orange_01.jpg\" "\\"Non-indigenous")
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\n | Photo Credit:
\n Ritu Raj Konwar\n <\/p>\nBack to the beginning<\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/th-i.thgim.com\/public\/incoming\/swmg5z\/article68871508.ece\/alternates\/FREE_1200\/Fruits%20in%20demand%20Sohiong%20Prunus%20nepalensis%20Meghalaya%20prune%20Commonly%20found%20in%20the%20higher%20elevations%20of%20Khasi%20and%20Jaintia%20Hills%20it%20is%20rich%20in%20vitamins%20and%20minerals%20and%20used%20to%20make%20jams%20squashes%201.jpg\")
<\/div>\n![\"About](\"https:\/\/th-i.thgim.com\/public\/incoming\/oeu766\/article68880702.ece\/alternates\/FREE_1200\/Wine-01.jpg\" "\\"About")
<\/div>\n
\n | Photo Credit:
\n Ritu Raj Konwar\n <\/p>\n![\"Ritual](\"https:\/\/th-i.thgim.com\/public\/incoming\/7m72r3\/article68871518.ece\/alternates\/FREE_1200\/iStock-2160907438.jpg\" "\\"Ritual")
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\n | Photo Credit:
\n Getty Images\n <\/p>\nGovernment initiative<\/h4>\n
The Meghalaya government imposes no VAT on fruit wines compared to 4%-53% VAT in other Indian states. The only levies are an ad valorem of \u20b9100 per case (12 bottles) and a retailer\u2019s lifting fee of \u20b910 per case.<\/h5>\n
![\"\u00a0A](\"https:\/\/th-i.thgim.com\/public\/incoming\/gg3vb3\/article68871836.ece\/alternates\/FREE_1200\/Wine_07112024_05.jpg\" "\\"\u00a0A")
<\/div>\n
\n | Photo Credit:
\n Ritu Raj Konwar\n <\/p>\nChecking farm waste<\/h4>\n
![\"Farmer](\"https:\/\/th-i.thgim.com\/public\/incoming\/275noh\/article68867501.ece\/alternates\/FREE_1200\/SM_Bording%20Ioannis%20with%20workers.JPG\" "\\"Farmer")
<\/div>\n![\"Dajied](\"https:\/\/th-i.thgim.com\/public\/incoming\/p71shk\/article68880707.ece\/alternates\/FREE_1200\/Wine_07112024_04.jpg\" "\\"Dajied")
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\n | Photo Credit:
\n Ritu Raj Konwar\n <\/p>\n