Chilean producer wins Jancis Robinson's Geoffrey Roberts travel award

Published: 03 June, 2010

Chilean wine producer, Derek Mossman has been named the winner of Jancis Robinson's Geoffrey Roberts travel award.

Mossman, of the Garage Wine Company, which is part of the MOVI group of small Chilean wine producers, will look to spend the £3,000 award by travelling around Chile and encouraging artisan wine production from dry-farmed old vines in southern Chile that were caught up in the earthquake earlier this year.

The overall aim of the Garage Wine Company is to "try and be an example for Maule growers of how they might produce their own wines as their forefathers did before them".

He plans to spend a year travelling through old vine country "in a beat up red truck" and hopefully publicise the use of grapes produced by historic vines such as the ancient Carignan plant.

"I believe many who live with very little, and now have much less would be better served to develop their fruit into something the higher-end modern wine industry needs instead of a commodity where they will always be slowly losing out against the powers of the market economy," he said.

"I will be looking for Carignan, and also Malbec and Cabernet Franc. I will also be looking for old-vine Pais/Mission worth grafting to noble varieties. I have seen this happen to more than one family with only a few hectares of Carignan and I think it could be coaxed into happening more often to benefit more families."

Runner-up for the 2010 Geoffrey Roberts Award is American wine writer Alice Feiring who is currently writing a book, Naked Wine, on what is her speciality interest. Her previous book was entitled, How I Saved the World from Parkerisation.

The Geoffrey Roberts Trust is a registered charity established in memory of the pioneer importer of California wines into the UK. This year's applications came from all over the world, including Kabul and South Africa.

The judges were Neville Abraham CBE, founder of Les Amis du Vin in the UK, Sally Clarke of Clarke's restaurant in London, food writer Jill Dupleix of Sydney, honorary secretary Venetia Lebus, Willie Lebus of Bibendum Wine, who once worked for Geoffrey Roberts, wine writer Jancis Robinson MW and restaurant writer Nick Lander.

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