The winners of this year’s Wine Industry Impacts Awards (WIIA) were announced last week, presented by the Wine Industry Suppliers Association (WISA) to a crowd of over 400 industry stakeholders.
The awards recognised excellence and innovation in seven categories – sustainability; packaging and design; wine tourism and marketing; viticulture and grapegrowing; agtech and digital; engineering and equipment; and winemaking and oenology. WISA Executive Officer, Shirley Fraser, said bringing all these categories together for one occasion shows the great things about the businesses that support the wine industry.
“The whole-of-sector event was a celebration in spite of the challenges facing us an industry right now. How we, as a collective industry, support each other in our search for ways of doing things better,” Fraser said.
WISA Chair, Jason Amos, added some further context, and said: “The awards program highlights where progress happens in creating new opportunities to articulate the innovative solutions that are happening and how their practical adoption can help with efficiency, sustainability, quality, recovery, risk mitigation, brand development, safety and more.”
WIIA recognises businesses that are achieving these values, rather than individuals, with the judges commending strong innovation across the board.
That innovation included Orora Glass, which took out the top prize in the Packaging & Design category for its light weight sparkling wine bottle. The judges described it as a “fantastic and sustainable packaging alternative for sparkling beverages” being 100 grams lighter than the brand’s standard sparkling bottle, yet having the same diameter, height and GV rating.
Another interesting innovation came from the winner of the Winemaking & Oenology category, Seguin Moreau, for its Smoke Taint Contingency Exception Oenochips. The unique idea to remove an issue that has been otherwise unsolveable looked at the process of how smoke/tar flavour taint reacted to grapes and wines. The solution was supported by Seguin Moreau’s research and development (R&D) in France, was well as work alongside the University of Adelaide from 2021.
There was strong investment in R&D across the board of winners. In the Viticulture & Grapegrowing category, Aussie Wine Group was recognised for its AWG Infield Grape Sorter, which saw over $1M spent on R&D alongside assistance from Wine Australia to validate the sorters. Meanwhile, in the Sustainability category, winners BHF Technologies and Taylors Wines were commended for investing in the development of a bespoke system for handling mains water quality, something which has produced significant sustainable outcomes for Taylors since its implementation.
Multiple categories were reportedly very competitive, showing the incredible breadth of innovation across the industry right now. One close race was for the top spot in the Agtech & Digital category, which was ultimately won by Airborne Logic for its work building on hyperspectral drone imagery to process data into meaningful and useful insights – described as being “the next best thing to being out in the vineyard.” It was also a close call in the Engineering & Equipment category, which was won by PTI Pacific for its “very clever Australian invention” – PTI Pacific Wine Gas Management technology, which allows wineries to skip inefficient cellar processes for gas adjustment with an automated solution.
Finally, in the Wine Tourism & Marketing category, Tradewindow took out the top spot for going beyond the expected outcomes and creating a lasting impact. Tradwindow’s Assure + platform was commended by the judges for enabling NSW Wine to onboard wineries in a matter of days, to create their first industry event catalogue in seconds.
The full list of winning and runner up companies is below.
Viticulture & Grapegrowing
Runner up: Ocvitti Ocloc
Winner: Aussie Wine Group
Agtech & Digital
Runner up: Onside
Winner: Airborne Logic
Engineering & Equipment
Runner up: Burkert Fluid Control Systems
Winner: PTI Pacific
Winemaking & Oenology
Runner up: Blue H20
Winner: Seguin Moreau
Wine Tourism & Marketing
Runner up: Launchy
Winner: Tradewindow
Packaing & Design
Runner up: Denomination Design
Winner: Orora Glass
Sustainability
Runner up: Seeley International
Winner: BHF Technologies and Taylors Wines