Volcanic Wine Awards | The Jancis Robinson Story

WWC21 – guide to our old-vines competition entries

Monday 26 July 2021 • 4 min read
WWC21 Eloy Haya Bobal Spain by Juan Diez Ausias

22 September 2021 See who won...

2 September 2021 And now it's your turn. Please vote for your favourite articles about old vines. You have until 17 September. See the shortlist.

26 July 2021 Below are links to the (unedited) entries in this year's writing competition that have so far been published, the most recently published at the top.

As Jancis pointed out in WWC21 – the story so far, we were stunned, and thrilled, by the response to our call for your stories about old vineyards. This was not an easy topic, requiring some pretty dedicated research as well as the talent for weaving facts into a captivating story. The people who entered had clearly taken a lot of time and even seemed to have invested considerable emotion into the project. As a result, we have this rather beautiful portfolio of essays on old vineyards, and we can only apologise to those we have had to leave out, forced to be more ruthless this year than any other year, because otherwise we’d have been publishing competition entries until Christmas!

Those whose entries we don’t publish should know that we are very, very grateful for the commitment you gave to this project, and everything you told us will eventually be captured in a new, dramatically updated and reformulated Old Vines Register.

Just a reminder that the entries will not show up on the home page – we don’t want to crowd out the normal schedule of articles. But there are so many of them we wanted to share with you that we will be publishing two entries a day until the end of August. Soon after that we will publish a shortlist and ask you to vote for your favourites. Some time in September we will announce the winners – chosen both by visitors to JancisRobinson.com and by us.

We’ve chosen to publish the competition entries in no particular order. But the links below show the most recently published entry at the top.

Please note that, as usual, we are publishing entries as they were submitted, in order to ensure a level playing field for competitors. We have not put them through our usual, rigorous copy-editing process. Nor have we published every single image supplied but have chosen those we think are the most interesting or attractive.

The photo above was taken by entrant Juan Diez Ausias and is of a Bobal vine that is more than a century old growing in the family vineyards of Bodegas Haya, DO Utiel-Requena. Owner and winemaker Eloy Haya is standing by the vine to give you an idea of its size.

Competition entries

Los Garcías de Verdevique, Andalucia by Ana Rivas 31 August 2021

Rojomoma, South Australia by Melissa Worrall 31 August 2021

Evangelho, California by Chris Howard 30 August 2021

AJ Duckhorn Vineyard, California by Ezra Wicks 30 August 2021

Julia's Vineyard, California by Clayton Fox 29 August 2021

Contrada Rampante, Sicily by Sarah Bray 29 August 2021

Quijada, Chile by Chris Howard 28 August 2021

Tintore di Tramonti, Campania by Antonia Caserta 28 August 2021

Brooks Estate Vineyard, Oregon by Pascal Brooks 27 August 2021

Elm Valley Vineyard, Michigan by Diana Hawkins 27 August 2021

Alan's Alicante, California by Christina Rasmussen 26 August 2021

Scherrer Family Vineyard, California by Jillian Riley 26 August 2021

Zinstar Vineyard, California by Gwendolyn Alley 25 August 2021

Ray Road, California by Miranda McCage 25 August 2021

Salanques de Joan Doix, Catalunya by Elizabeth Hecker 24 August 2021

Finca Genoveva, Galicia by Salvator Vandewalle 24 August 2021

Vigna Quattro Stati, Slovenia by Irene Graziotto 23 August 2021

Piekenierskloof, South Africa by Cerina van Niekirk 23 August 2021

Gevonden, South Africa by Jono Le Feuvre 22 August 2021

Broom Ridge Vineyard, South Africa by Ian Haggie 22 August 2021

Quinta do Noval, Portugal by Holly Shaw 21 August 2021

Fondo San Giuseppe, Emilia-Romagna by Hajnalka Kis 21 August 2021

Barba Yannis, Greece by Savvas Kyriakidis 20 August 2021

Hetény Vineyard, Hungary by Gergely Ripka 20 August 2021

Pédebernarde, south-west France by Hilary McGrath 19 August 2021

Creutz, Franken by Ulrich Hagenmeyer 19 August 2021

Clos des Capucins, Loire by Madeleine Rothery 18 August 2021

Le Jardin, Languedoc by Caryl Panman 18 August 2021

Tuchan, Languedoc by Charlotte Fenwick 17 August 2021

La Roque, Languedoc by Katie Jones 17 August 2021

Watunga Road Vineyard, South Australia by Kirsty Hill 16 August 2021

Los Jardines Ocultas, Bolivia by Nayan Gowda 16 August 2021

Angélica Vineyard, Argentina by Adrianna Catena 15 August 2021

Gibson's old vines, South Australia by Tim Eichelberger 15 August 2021

Keuka Block 8A, New York State by Jerry Smith 14 August 2021

Charles Coury Vineyard, Oregon by Lewis Kopman 14 August 2021

Sanford and Benedict, California by Ben Van Antwerp 13 August 2021

Compagni Portis Vineyard, California by Mary K. Miller 13 August 2021

San Julián, Rioja by Melanie Hickman 12 August 2021

Breaky Bottom, England by Katrina de Gentile-Williams 12 August 2021

Koshu Kaido, Japan by Rosemary Mitchell 11 August 2021

Ximo's vineyard, Catalunya by Sinisa Curovic 11 August 2021

Bateau et Buisson, Champagne by Sara Underdown 10 August 2021

La Vigna di Don Peppino, Sicily by Giovanni Di Guardo 10 August 2021

Truquilemu, Chile by Elona Hesseling 9 August 2021

Santa Rosa de Lavaderos, Chile by Peter McRostie Cooper 9 August 2021

The Great Ancients of Best's, Victoria by Max Hollander 8 August 2021

The Old Ladies, Languedoc by Janice Macdonald 8 August 2021

Tahbilk, Victoria​​​​​​​ by Melanie Gilcrist 7 August 2021

Bud's Vineyard, Washington by Hayley Hancock 7 August 2021

Berg Kaisersteinfels, Rheingau by Richard Lewis 6 August 2021

Cariano, Lazio by Sarah May Grunwald 6 August 2021

Colomé, Argentina by Jo Eames 5 August 2021

Vigna del Generale, Emilia-Romagna by Mirko Pastorelli 5 August 2021

Arba, Kazakhstan by Xeniya Volosnikova 4 August 2021

Nicolini Ranch, California by Jeff Burrows 4 August 2021

Karkın Vineyards, Turkey by Umay Çeviker 3 August 2021

Harb's secret garden, Lebanon by Farrah Berrou 3 August 2021

Paliokalias, Greece by Olga Antoniadou 2 August 2021

Le Nicchie, Tuscany by Bart de Vries 2 August 2021

Midin, Turkey by Andrea Lemieux 1 August 2021

Bothy Vineyard, England by Sam Hellyer 1 August 2021

Karabunar, Bulgaria by Desislava Lyapova 31 July 2021

Mr Toutousanis' vineyard, Greece by Vasilis Mylonas 31 July 2021

David Hill, Oregon by Karen Magner 30 July 2021

Bethel Heights, Oregon by Monique Geisen 30 July 2021

Skurfkop, South Africa by Rob MacCulloch MW 29 July 2021

Astley Vineyard, England by Lindsay Jones 29 July 2021

Zorah, Armenia by Caroline Gilby MW 28 July 2021

Santiago Santamaria's vineyard, Castilla y León by Olly Styles 28 July 2021

Betholdi, Austria by Valeria Tenison 27 July 2021

Skurfberg, South Africa by Etienne Neethling 27 July 2021

Giorgi Natenadze, Georgia by Sarah May Grunwald 26 July 2021

SeaHorse, Israel by Ze'ev Dunie 26 July 2021

General articles about the competition

WWC21 – who won 22 September 2021

WWC21 – the shortlist 1 September 2021

WWC21 – our plans 20 July 2021

WWC21 – the story so far 6 July 2021

More on our 2021 writing competition 13 April 2021

Our 2021 writing competition 30 March 2021

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