Champagne Indage acquires Darlington Wines in UK

Mumbai: After announcing its third Australian acquisition on Saturday, India's oldest vintner, Champagne Indage Limited (CIL), today said it had acquired the consolidated assets of leading independent supplier of wines in the UK, Darlington Wines.

The Darlington acquisition will strengthen Champagne Indage's three Australian acquisitions which took place in the recent past - Thachi wines in 2007 and Loxton winery and VinCrest in 2008. (See: Champagne Indage makes its third Australian acquisition; buys premium winery VineCrest)

While Thatchi is a major seller of unbrnaded wines to "own-lable" resellers, Darlington imports wines from around the world for the 120-million case British wine market through its overseas subsidiary. Its business is fully backward and forward integrated from import of wine under own labels to bottling, warehousing and distribution.

Tyhe acquisition in the UK will help Champagne Indage stabilise Thachi's sales even under its own brand, if it so chooses, in the UK and other European markets.
 
Over the years the UK distributor has set up a network for supplying numerous trade channels. Its production and bottling facility, Corby Bottlers, the longest established independent 'bag-in-box' wine producer supplying to most of the major supermarkets in the UK, such as Sainsbury's. 

It is also rated as Europe's most technically competent filler of wine into bag-in-box, with expertise in wine handling techniques and imaginative product formats. The production from Corby Bottlers is transferred to Birbeck House, its 145,000-square feet state-of-the-art warehouse, capable of handling 500,000 cases at any one time, under custom bond, for distribution throughout the UK, Ireland and Mainland Europe.

Ranjit S Chougule, managing director, Champagne Indage Ltd. said, ''This is an exciting milestone for our company, and we are looking forward to scaling our growth with this acquisition. The consolidated assets will give us large scale route to market efficiency in a price competitive market such as the UK, not to mention the positive relationships with large institutional buyers. It will undoubtedly drive greater value immediately for our key stakeholders, including our end consumers.''