Bruce Almighty
Results of the inaugural FM <i>(Financial Mail)</i> Wine Business Awards were announced recently with winemaker Bruce Jack named Personality of the Year.
Jack initially rose to prominence thanks to some innovative wines under the Flagstone label before doing a remarkable deal with Constellation (the world’s biggest wine company) that saw Flagstone sold to them and him appointed to head up Kumala, the Constellation-owned brand that happens to be South Africa’s biggest in the UK market.
Convenors of the competition are John Woodward of Frogitt & Vonkel wine merchants and founder of the Jo’burg Wine Show, and Delarey Brugman, owner of Stellenbosch winery Alluvia Wine Estate. They explain the rationale behind the awards as being “to shift the industry’s focus away from the content in the bottle and instead concentrate on the contributions of those role players throughout the value chain”.
