ASVO 2021 Awards for Excellence

The ASVO strives to promote the advancement of professional knowledge, professional skills and professional attitudes, in the fields of viticulture and oenology, in members of the Society. In 2012, the ASVO Awards for Excellence were established as a prestigious event to promote industry excellence, foster leadership and encourage innovation and sustainability in the Australian wine industry.

ASVO Award recipients are nominated by ASVO members, with the finalists decided by an ASVO Board appointed selection committees, comprised of individuals who themselves are distinguished in the fields of viticulture and oenology who demonstrate exceptional leadership ability and vision.

This award, established in 2018, is in honour of the late Dr Peter May who was the inaugural editor for the Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research (AJGWR) and is awarded to the author(s) of the most cited AJGWR paper published in the previous 5 years.

Dr Meg Whitener, from Bell's Brewery, Michigan, was honoured with this award in 2021. Dr Whitener's paper ‘Effect of non-Saccharomyces yeasts on the volatile chemical profile of Shiraz wine’ doi.org/10.1111/ajgw.12269, was published in the AJGWR in 2017. The paper reports the results of an investigation into the impact that the non-Saccharomyces yeasts in sequential inoculation with Saccharomyces cerevisiae, had on the volatile chemical profile of Shiraz wine.

This award honours an outstanding author(s) of a paper published in the AJGWR in the previous 12 months where the potential application of the research on viticultural practices is deemed by an industry/science-based panel to have the most impact.

The 2021 Viticulture Paper of the Year was awarded to Dr Marcos Bonada, from the Department of Primary Industries and Regions, South Australian Research and Development Institute (PIRSA-SARDI), and was titled: ‘Impact of low rainfall during dormancy on vine productivity and development’ doi.org/10.1111/ajgw.12445.

This award honours an outstanding author(s) of a paper published in the AJGWR in the previous 12 months where the potential application of the research on winemaking practices is deemed by an industry/science-based panel to have the most impact.

The 2021 Oenology paper of the year was awarded to Dr Martin Moran, from Mordrelle Wines, for the paper ‘Impact of late pruning and elevated ambient temperature on Shiraz wine chemical and sensory attributes’ doi.org/10.1111/ajgw.12470.

These awards honour an outstanding winemaker and viticulturist who demonstrates a broad positive contribution to the Australian wine industry and/or community, improvement from standard practice in their field through adoption of innovative practices, technologies or standards and contributes positively to the culture of their organisation and the broader wine industry in either a regional, state or national capacity. The nominees' activities for which they are being recognised must have occurred within Australia over the previous 5 years.

Ben Harris is the Viticulture Manager at Wynns Coonawarra Estate. This role includes the management of the technical viticulture team and vineyard operations for Australia and New Zealand. Throughout his career, Ben has worked in several roles in Australia, New Zealand and Bordeaux, which include technical and management roles in McLaren Vale and Langhorne Creek, managing the Penfolds vineyard at Robe and managing the Wynns Coonawarra Estate vineyards.

Ben's vision is to continuously improve vineyard performance and sustainability while protecting the vineyards from biosecurity risks. He wants to leverage the latest R&D, innovation and technology to create real step change, while also applying the key learnings from the past. Ben is focused on removing one of the biggest challenges in the industry, which is bridging the gap between R&D and the practical application of the latest knowledge and technology.

One of Ben's innovations has involved partnering with The Yield in 2018 to leverage data, of Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) along with climatic data to improve yield estimation and vineyard management decisions. Since then, this partnership has been rolled out to all TWE vineyards across Australia and New Zealand in 2020, with harvest quantity and timing predictions being generated for every block (over 9000 ha). Growth stage predictions, long-range weather forecasts, and notifications have been established for each site to assist with management decisions and risk mitigation. Based on the success of this partnership, The Yield has now partnered with other wine companies using predictive models and data analytics to improve their businesses.

‘The ASVO plays an important role within the Australian wine community, promoting the best R&D, innovation and assisting the extension of research into practice. Many exceptional viticulturists have won this award in the past and it's an honour to be nominated as a finalist for the ASVO viticulturist of the year’, said Ben.

Alex Cassegrain is the Head Winemaker at Cassegrain Wines in the Hastings River region of New South Wales. Alex grew up in the vineyard and worked in the Cassegrain family winery, with a hands-on learning approach to the time-honoured winemaking practices that have been passed down through the generations.

When damage from bush fires threatened the livelihoods of many growers in 2020, Alex stepped up looking for a solution to salvage smoke-affected fruit. This involved working with practitioners and researchers to better understand the sensory and chemical effects of smoke taint, and how it can best be treated during and after ferment. Alex trialled various techniques through bucket ferments in an effort to reduce the impact of smoke taint on the final wine, the results of which he shared at the National Bushfire Conference in May 2021.

Following this, Cassegrain Wines has recently secured a million-dollar grant from the Cooperative Research Centres Projects to formally evaluate methodologies and strategies for mitigating smoke taint. This work will involve several prominent research and supply chain partners and is expected to deliver internationally significant findings.

Alex is confident in the coming years, through trial and error, innovations and experimentation, the industry will be in a much better position to navigate through the challenges associated with smoke taint as a result of bush fires. Sharing this information, knowledge and techniques will be the most important outcome.

‘I strongly believe that this award is one for everyone involved in particular, to the growers who went through such an ordeal. The idea of leaving grapes on the vine due to something quite unknown wasn't a solution and that's where we decided to try anything to see if we could turn a negative into a positive, and in some cases we did. I am so proud to be the recipient of this award and it has given me the confidence to always push the boundaries and to continue to be innovative and a big thankyou to the ASVO committee for everything you do for the industry’, said Alex Cassegrain.