Award win a great start to a promising career

Lucas Strong has won the Wine Marlborough Wine Show Gingko Trophy for 2022, an award by Te Pūkenga NMIT and Wine Marlborough, given to the best student entry.

Lucas’ entry was from the Muscat grape variety and was judged blind against all other ‘alternative whites’. He received 89 points out of 100, which is one point off a silver medal.

“I’m pretty happy with it, yeah, it was pretty cool,” said Lucas.

His family owns a vineyard, and Lucas has grown up around grapes. He is about to start working full-time at Babich, a small family-owned winery in the Marlborough region and is considering a Bachelor of Viticulture and Winemaking in July 2023.

The Marlborough Boys student says he found attending the Wine Trades Academy at Te Pūkenga every Thursday was very helpful.

“I’m really happy that I went to Trades Academy,” he said.

His tutor, Ngarita Warden, said there were fourteen student entries at the Marlborough Wine Show this year.

“Three wines received bronze medals and the amazing thing was that these were all made by Trades Academy high school students,” Ngarita said.

“The Trades Academy offers secondary school students a great opportunity to experience a career in a practical way and really gain an understanding if that career path is for them or not,” she said.

To learn more about Te Pūkenga NMIT Viticulture and Winemaking programmes, visit the Te Pūkenga NMIT website.(external link)