This year's prizes for our winning wine writers involve trees, both dead and alive.
We are now pleased to announce the prizes for this year’s wine writing competition on the theme of renewal. (See full details of the competition and how to apply.)
On the basis of past competitions, we don’t want to be too precise about exactly how many prizes there are but we can divulge that the principal prize(s) will involve planting trees, thereby offsetting wine’s carbon emissions. We hope to allow a winner to choose where their tree or trees are planted, possibly on a specified wine estate, thereby making a contribution to biodiversity.
(We originally wanted to offer a visit to a suitably chosen regenerative vineyard but ran into problems with US law which involves a mind-numbing and ultimately impossible amount of bureaucracy for any prize worth more than $500.)
We also intend to offer the overall winner, and possibly their subject, the chance to feature in a podcast, under the auspices of JancisRobinson.com and/or the Regenerative Viticulture Foundation, details to be worked out later.
Runners-up will win copies of at least two of our favourite books that put regeneration in the general, not wine-specific, context it deserves.
A brilliantly inspiring book written by a hero of all those involved in regenerative agriculture of all sorts is Nicole Masters’ For The Love of Soil. You can see her on YouTube or follow her on Instagram.
Cal Flyn’s Islands of Abandonment is the most extraordinary story of the way nature regenerates itself after humans have wreaked utter havoc – from Chernobyl to Verdun, Africa to Montserrat, chemical wastelands to the abandoned Scottish islands. The book interweaves culture, history, politics, nature, agriculture, ecology, equality and community. It is spellbinding.
Don’t forget that we will be asking you to vote for your favourite entry, so there may well be a winner chosen by the JR.com team and another chosen by you.
Deadline for entries is Thursday 30 June 2022.
Image by Arnaud Mesureur on Unsplash.