Learning from the global leaders

9 July, 2019

Six lucky South Australian wine industry members are set to travel to other Great Wine Capitals to learn directly from international industry experts.

Each participant will receive a $5,000 bursary as part of the Great Wine Capitals Knowledge Exchange Program to support travel costs and allow them to dive into an international learning journey – exploring elements such as wine making, viticulture, Agtech, innovation, biosecurity practices, research and development, marketing or regional development.

The participants are:

  • Bodhi Edwards, Chapel Hill Winery (McLaren Vale), who will visit the Napa Valley and meet with tourism officials as well as marketing and tasting room professionals to explore innovative ways to drive International Wine Tourism spend in his home region.
  • Jana Hildebrandt, University of South Australian / Australian Wine Research Institute who will to Bordeaux and collaborate with the Institut des Sciences de la Vigne et du Vin looking at the effect of vineyard and winery heating on overripe characters in red wine and grapes.
  • Lauren Hansen, Penley Estate (Coonawarra) who will visit St Emilion in Bordeaux and visit and work with winemakers in the region who are specialising in the vinification of Cabernet Franc.
  • Dr Mary Retallack, Retallack Viticulture who will visit Bordeaux, Verona and Lausanne to meet with industry and visit chateaus that specialise in enhancing the biodiversity of their vineyards by using insectary plants, microbat boxes, and predatory bird perches and to learn more about how each demonstrate their environmental stewardship practices.
  • Oli Madgett, Platfarm who will visit San Francisco/Napa Valley to learn about AgTech innovation in the region, and also share with growers in California what's happening in the Australian AgTech ecosystem.
  • Stuart Mosman, Chalk Hill Wines (McLaren Vale) who will visit the Casablanca Valley in Chile and Mendoza in Argentina. He will study cellar doors and tasting rooms and benchmark both regions customer service, identify the best structured tastings and how they are managing their wine clubs and database.

As part of the program, they will prepare reports and blogs and share their learnings with the South Australian industry.

Stay tuned for the outcomes of this exciting inaugural program.

Read more about the recipients.