Thierry’s announces winner of 2012 WSET scholarship award

The winner of the Thierry Cabanne Scholarship Award (TCSA) was announced by the Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET) at the Guildhall this evening.

Stephen Tjasink, one of the WSET’s top performing students, has a Masters in Computer Science and is currently working as a consultant for the BBC. Stephen grew up in the winelands of South Africa which is where his passion for wine was first ignited. Stephen is particularly interested in finding better ways to communicate with consumers and help make wine more accessible. As well as being passionate about wine, he is a confirmed ‘foodie’ and has his own blog.

Matthew Dickinson, marketing director, Thierry’s, says, “We have long been fervent supporters of the great work that the WSET does in bringing education in wines and spirits to an ever-increasing worldwide audience. For this reason we are not only proud of our corporate patronage of the Trust, but also are very pleased to announce Stephen as winner of our Thierry Cabanne Scholarship Award. The award has become an integral part of our company calendar and over the last three years we have welcomed people from very different backgrounds to spend time learning about wine, visiting our producers, working on specific projects and understanding more about our industry, supported by our team of experts. Our inaugural TCSA winner, Pieter Rosenthal, is still working with us on a consultancy basis, building our increasing presence in social networks.”

“One important stipulation of the TCSA is that candidates should not currently be working in the wine trade which reflects our desire as a company to invite fresh ideas and opinions from those outside the industry. The wine trade talks a lot about ‘engaging the consumer’ but still has a tendency to be a bit inward-looking, finding it difficult to put itself in the consumers’ shoes. Now, more than ever, we need to think outside the box and welcome knowledge and experience from other areas. To this end, we have recruited a number of people from outside the wine trade over the last year from diverse industries such as cosmetics, dairy, and organic nutrition and their insight and experience has been invaluable to us.”

Background
The Thierry Cabanne Scholarship Award was created with the values of Thierry’s late founder firmly in mind. Thierry was a true consumer champion and believed in offering the customer great value for money. He was never a wine snob and believed in making wine as accessible as possible to a wider audience. Thierry was one of the first to recognise the power of the supermarkets and had the foresight to realise that this was where most people would buy their wine. Thanks to his vision, the company now enjoys excellent, long-standing relationships with all major multiple retailers and specialists and is fully committed to continuing his legacy.