An Arunachalee woman has stirred a storm in the wine industry with her signature kiwi wine ‘Naara Aaba’. Tage Rita, an agricultural engineer, now an entrepreneur, set up her winery in Hong village in 2017. Since then, her team has grabbed the attention of wine lovers from far and wide.
“Naara Aaba’s journey began with the purpose of creating market linkage for the under-utilised kiwi fruits grown in abundance in the region.” Rita told. She said reviving the demand for organic kiwis was one of the first milestones she has achieved in her path to provide sustainable livelihood to kiwi farmers. She said that every ingredient used in manufacturing is organic and certified and that the wine has all the vitamins and minerals present in the fruit. She tries to keep the taste as natural as possible while retaining the fruit’s nutritional value, making her wine a healthier choice among alcoholic beverages.
The initial days were tremendously tough for her as she began her mission to manufacture kiwi wine in an unforgiving mountainous terrain and dealing with the ignorance of locals about the huge potential of the fruit as an ingredient for wine. Around 300-400 domestic and foreign tourists visit the winery every month for wine tasting and a tour of the facility, so Rita has now diversified her production to make wine from plums, wild apples and pears. Her dedication to supporting her community with entrepreneurial efforts earned her the ‘Women Transforming India’ Award of the Niti Ayog in collaboration with the United Nations in 2018. She has also been awarded the Nari Shakti Puraskar in 2021 by the Union Women & Child Development Ministry and Women Achievers Award 2021-22 by the state Women and Child Development Department.
The wine is currently available in Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Assam. With plans to scale up the winery’s production besides the introduction of new fruit variants, Rita intends on marketing her wine across the country and abroad in the near future.