The beauty of winegrowing

This beautiful shot – ‘Gathering prunings on Corton Hill’ by Jon Wyand – has won the Errazuriz Wine Photographer of the Year category in the Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year 2022 contest, a leading celebration of food and wine photography.
The picture, taken early on a bright winter’s morning, captures an industrious worker gathering prunings at the Corton Les Bressandes vineyard on the Hill of Corton in Burgundy.
“The winning image evokes with stark beauty the reality of winegrowing – you are always at the mercy of nature,” commented wine and food writer Joanna Simon, one of the judges. “But there’s an extra element here: is he scrutinising the weather? Or might he now be just a little lost in thought?”
Wyand had first won the People subcategory of the Errazuriz Wine Photographer of the Year, which also includes the subcategories Places and Produce.


Places was won by Marina Spironetti of Italy, with ‘Architecture And Wine’ (above), taken at the Antinori nel Chianti Classico winery in Italy.


US snapper Suzanne Becker Bronk won the Produce subcategory with ‘On Ice’, an image of dry ice being used to inhibit the beginning of fermentation at Caldwell Vineyard in the Napa Valley, California.


Second in the Produce subcategory was Australian Duy Dash’s image of ‘Bubbles’, from wine fermenting in an open fermenter at Henschke.


Third place in this subcategory went to Mick Rock, of the United Kingdom. His photo of bottles in a ‘Rioja Cellar’ (above) was taken at Bodegas Campillo.
“I couldn’t be more delighted with the quality of this year’s images,” Joanna continued. “When travel has been so curtailed, the ingenuity and, in many cases, the joie de vivre shown by the photographers has been inspiring.”


Runner-up to Wyand in the People subcategory was UK photographer Gilbert Bages with ‘Never Waste Wine’. He explained the image: “Shooting with the Cal Cabo Celler wine family in the vineyards in Spain until it got dark. This is the daughter, playing with wine in front of the car headlights, just before we finished shooting.”


Third place in the People subcategory went to another UK photographer, David Charbit. ‘Eight Days A Week’ shows winemaker Peter Hall of Breaky Bottom Vineyard in East Sussex, who says he works “eight days a week”, doing everything in the winery himself – even labelling the bottles. Incidentally, Breaky Bottom Vineyard’s Cuvée Marraine Pooks 2016 – a classic-method sparkling wine made from Seyval Blanc – won a gold medal at this year’s International Wine Challenge.


Runner-up to Spironetti in the Places subcategory was Suzanne Becker Bronk’s ‘Woolly Weeders’, which shows sheep posing in a vineyard when they should be working.


Third place in the Places subcategory went to another US photographer, Adrian Chitty. His ‘Vineyard Sunrise’ shows a mid-October sunrise over a vineyard in the Dundee Hills AVA, in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. “The clear, cold morning gave me beautiful shadows to photograph against the stark geometry of the rows of vines,” he said.

An exhibition of the 2022 finalists will be held at The Royal Photographic Society in Bristol, England, from November 20 to December 12. Entry is free.
To view the online gallery of all the 2022 finalists, click here. 

The sponsor of the wine category, Chilean producer Viña Errazuriz, gained a gold medal at the International Wine Challenge 2022 with its ‘Aconcagua Costa’ Chardonnay 2019. Errazuriz also picked up silver medals for its Max Carmenère 2019 and 2020, its Estate Reserva Sauvignon Blanc 2021 and its Estate Reserva Chardonnay 2020. For the company’s full results, click here.