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Kapil Grover has taken the path less trodden - and it's finally paying off.. In the early 1980s, his friends scoffed when he began hunting for the best spot to start a vineyard in India.
"India is not a wine-drinking country" they said.
Today, it's a safe bet that nobody's laughing at the owner of Grover Vineyards, one of India's top winemakers.
Overall, Indians still drink tiny amounts of wine but more wineglasses are clinking and the market has been growing by about 30 per cent annually for the past three years.
Grover is confident the growth will continue.
"I think it will continue for the rest of my life. The potential is huge," he says.
India's 1.1 billion people drank only 20 million bottles of wine last year - equal to a teaspoon each for the year. That is what makes Grover so confident.
He uses what he calls his "Kellogg's index" to calculate how many Indians are likely to be wine drinkers - or the potential of the market.
Why Kellogg's? That's because not many people in India can afford to eat Kellogg's cornflakes, so the breakfast cereal is something of a luxury product.
Grover believes the upper-income, middle-class families who buy cornflakes are probably the people who will be wine drinkers.
"When I talk about the wine market, I am thinking of the consumer who might have Kellogg's. I reckon that must be about 20 million people," he says.
But even by that reckoning, his target market drank only one bottle a year each.
He responds: "What will happen if they drink one bottle a month?"
In the early 1980s, Grover and his father began looking for the best spot to start a vineyard, finally settling on the pleasantly warm region in the foothills of the Nandi Hills, near Bangalore in south India.
That was the first step of what was going to be a long journey. They then spent several years experimenting with different grapes before settling on cabernet sauvignon and shiraz.
In 1989 they planted vines on about 17ha of land and the first bottles of Grover Red went on sale in 1992.
Soon afterwards, the Grovers roped in top wine expert Michel Rolland to guide their efforts and, in 1995, French company Veuve Clicquot took a stake in the company, posting a young French winemaker to Bangalore.
Although, wine critics had given the wine the thumbs up, most Indians, who like to socialise over a glass or two of whisky, barely noticed.
The 1990s were hard work, with only small quantities of the wine selling but business began to pick up soon after 2000.
Now Grover, which makes 1.25 million bottles a year, and two other pioneering companies - Chateau Indage and Sula Wines - account for about 90 per cent of domestic production. But all three are still mid-sized companies without financial muscle. And they will soon have to face the big boys who are getting ready to elbow their way into the fledgling wine industry.
Drinks giants Diageo and Pernod Ricard now figure it's worth their while to start pouring wine to Indians.
So Diageo is promoting its international range of wines, and is also looking at teaming up with a local winery so it can become a domestic producer.
Says Diageo India managing director Asif Adil: "We plan to enter into a partnership with a winery in Nasik [the main wine-growing area, in Maharashtra, western India) to market a domestic label."
Similarly, Pernod Ricard has teamed with a small producer in Maharashtra in western India, and is making Nine Hills, a cabernet sauvignon which is being sold in some parts of India.
India's top liquor baron, Vijay Mallya - who made his mark internationally by snapping up French winemaker Bouvet Ladubay and Scotch company Whyte & Mackay - is also bulldozing his way into the wine industry.
He's planning a 3.5 million litre winery in Maharashtra's Baramati district, and has powerful political support, because India's Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar is associated with the venture.
Political backing has also helped the wine industry's growth. In 2001 the Maharashtra state Government slashed duties and made it easier for retailers to sell wine.
The result is that about 40 small producers have got into the business in the last year and Nasik has become India's wine capital.
Even Grover, who says the region around Bangalore is the best place to grow wine, is putting up a winery in Maharashtra to take advantage of tax breaks for state producers.
One uncertainty hangs over the industry. India has been taken to the World Trade Organisation by the EU over its high duties on hard liquor and wine.
Most experts say India is bound to lose.
Foreign winemakers have been looking eagerly at India and if duties drop, a flood of new brands will appear in Indian homes and restaurants.
Says Grover: "There's lots of cheap quality wine being made globally."
But with the market growing all the time nobody is worrying too much about a foreign invasion.
They are looking into the future and raising their glasses for a toast.
