by Dudley Brown
Image adapted from the film Young Frankenstein featuring Dr. Mardi Longbottom from AWRI and SWA – Sustainable Winegrowing Australia as “Little Frankie”
The purpose of certification systems of any sort is to communicate integrity between distant producers and consumers. At their best, they provide an assurance meaningful enough to sway a purchase toward a certified producer thereby creating a flywheel effect of better behaviour, better products and increased uptake by producers and consumers alike.
Given that the purpose a certification system and an associated “trustmark” is to communicate integrity, it is the minimum expectation that the the system of assessment used, the people who develop and administer the system, the system of certification and the certifiers employed all need to be transparent, fair and free from any appearance of conflicted interests.
Industry leader recognised in Australia Day Awards
January 27th, 2021
Australian Grape & Wine chairman, Mr Sandy Clark, yesterday received an Australia Day award of the Officer of the Order in the General Division (AO), for his distinguished service to the wine industry through leadership roles, to finance and business, to the arts, and to charitable initiatives.
Mr Clark, former chairman of Brown Brothers Group and Mitchelton Wines, was appointed as the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia (WFA) president on 15 November 2016, and was a driving force behind the amalgamation of WFA and Australian Vignerons, giving the industry one united voice at the Federal level.