If innovation makes your cellar’s heart beat sustainably, you could win the coveted Bellingham Bernard Podlashuk trophy and prize as a Shiraz producer this year.
Shiraz SA introduced this award in 2022 as part of their annual Shiraz Challenge. The Bernard Podlashuk Trophy, named after the Father of South African Shiraz, is sponsored by Bellingham Wines and includes an R30 000 cash prize.
Saronsberg was the first recipient of this magnificent trophy, which was presented to Dewaldt Heyns at the Shiraz Challenge awards function in August 2022. The criteria for the inaugural round was the best overall performance by a producer over the first ten years of the Shiraz Challenge.
Shiraz SA is broadening its net this year by encouraging all producers to compete, regardless of whether they are Shiraz SA members or not. Shiraz SA’s committee has developed new criteria, which are supported by Andrew Harris, DGB Marketing & Sales Bellingham Wines.
“The future criteria are ‘excellence, innovation, creativity, sustainability, and social responsibility,” says Shiraz SA Chairman Edmund Terblanche. “These concepts overlap in many ways and thus cannot be considered apart from one another.”
“Participants’ performance and capability will be measured on the basis of research on sustainably oriented innovation, which focuses on how products, processes, and practises can be harnessed to create and realise social, environmental, and economic value.”
According to Terblanche, innovative organisations build skills that stimulate market opportunities, enable individuals to better understand changes in business environments, and help create new solutions, internally as well as in collaboration with partners: “Successful innovation therefore requires a dynamic ability to adapt, integrate, and rebuild organisational skills, resources, and functional skills to address challenges around sustainability.”
“The Bellingham Shiraz trophy and prize will thus be more than just a competition,” Terblanche says. “Rather, it will be an academic mission based on years of proven research, and we look forward to the results that will endorse Shiraz producers’ continued performance capability.”
Producers can enter by completing the entry form and a questionnaire. The deadline for submissions is Friday 15 July 2023. A panel will interview three finalists. The winner will be announced at the Shiraz Challenge awards function on Thursday 17 August 2023.
For more information and to enter, visit www.ShirazSA.co.za. Follow Shiraz SA on Twitter @Shiraz SA, Facebook @ShirazSouthAfrica, and Instagram @shirazsouthafrica and chat along with #ShirazSAAwards.