Limitations of the pocket would still enable two per cent of India's good souls with enough month-end surplus for purchasing one or perhaps two bottles or tins now read of only in glossy magazines or viewed on glitzy TV commercials. This leaves 20 million gullible people with a total annual purchasing potential of around Rs 1,000 crore.

A well-known Indian alcohol brand label lays claim to the product being "new oak cask aged". I had occasion to interact recently with a renowned independent European wine taster who staked his reputation in denuding this claim in pronouncing that the product had no oak flavor whatsoever.

"Founder's reserve'', a claim used by more than one leading local brand, leaves one to wonder if the founder ever reserved any stock for himself at all. "Blended with Scotch" is an oft read statement on local whiskey bottles, the blending proportions between Scotch and Indian barrels being left to the consumer's imagination.

It is not that such fancy claims are limited only to India. In France, where wine growing, production and quality is so religiously regulated and controlled, a large quantity of wine from non-delineated areas finds itself bottled very attractively by some "negociants" or wine buyers with label claims of "Cuvee Prince", "Cuvee Vintage' or "Grand Vin". Such labels would carry no weight in the discerning markets of western Europe or the US but then there is the imminent danger of their being dumped at needlessly high prices on developing countries with a potential of 20 million gullible consumers as in India. This practice afflicts not only the wine trade in France but even the wine producing nations in the new world.

Over the years, excise laws have regulated the distribution, stocking, sales and levies on liquor, local or imported, but have hardly ever governed or stipulated the manufacturing or labeling of the product. The food processing and manufacturing industry is regulated heavily by complex and myriad laws governing product standards and branding, laws often irrelevant and archaic but nevertheless binding in criminal courts, laws enacted to safeguard health and well-being of the consumer. One would expect minimum standards for liquor labeling practices to be initiated for local produce, applicable concurrently to all imports, reminding law makers that laws are essential in safeguarding the consumer's interest and not intimidating their lifestyle as is the case with prohibition.

An advisory to would-be wine buyers is to have a cautious approach and await the eventual flood of brands where prices will settle and balance out based on consumers' demand. Cheers.