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Winner of Dom Pérignon Golden Vines MW Scholarship announced
Champagne house Dom Pérignon announced today alongside Liquid Icons and the Gérard Basset Foundation the winner of the new Dom Pérignon Golden Vines MW Scholarship.
Arpine Manukyan, an Armenian wine professional and winemaker, based in Yerevan has won the award. Originally pursuing a career as a linguist, in 2014 Arpine decided to drastically change her path and instead began pursuing winemaking.
While certainly a brave decision, in her own words, she said: “I have no regrets, as it allowed me to pursue my true passion”. Sadly, despite her impressive achievements such as becoming the first person in Armenia to achieve the WSET Diploma and Weinakademiker qualifications, Arpine has had to face up against “gender-based barriers” which “marginalise women and hinder their professional growth and educational opportunities”.
Such setbacks, while far too common, have not stopped Arpine from being “resilient and determined to overcome any obstacles and prove that women have the skills and passion to excel in any aspect of winemaking”.
The Judges were delighted by the quality of all the 18 applications received this year. Each application was of a very high quality, and it was a very difficult task to choose a winner among such fine candidates.
Alongside the well-deserved winner Arpine, there was one further applicant whose exceptional resilience in the face of adversity and passion for the study of wine has led them to award her a Gérard Basset Foundation Research Grant, which will support her with her research paper assignment when she enters Stage 3 of the MW Programme.
The Dom Pérignon Golden Vines MW Scholarship Winner, coming from an historically marginalised community, will undertake an intensive, paid training program for 4 weeks at Dom Pérignon, in which time they will work closely with the winemaking team, attaining skills and knowledge which will aid them both with the MW studies and with their future career progression. The Scholarship will fund the winner to undertake the MW Certification.
18 applications were received in 2023 from 7 different countries, with applicants comprising 11 different nationalities. More than half of this year’s applicants were women.
The Judging Panel for the Scholarship consisted of Vincent Chaperon, Chef de Cave of Dom Pérignon, Maxime Balay, Global Business Development Director of Dom Pérignon, and Romané Basset, Co-Founding Trustee of the Gérard Basset Foundation, alongside Christopher Morron and Jean-Baptiste Terlay of Dom Pérignon’s Communications and Winemaking teams, respectively, for the interviews.
The Gérard Basset Foundation Research Grant Winner was also announced as Iulia Scavo.
Iulia is a sommelière and freelance wine journalist and educator, currently on Stage 2 of the MW Programme. She has had to face numerous obstacles in the course of her professional life as a sommelière, but this has not dimmed her passion for broadening her knowledge and spreading her passion for wine to others.