Olly now voice of English wine

The trade body for wine growers in England, the English Wine Producers, has appointed broadcaster and journalist Olly Smith as its first English Wine Communicator of the Year.
Smith’s appointment was revealed at the recent Annual English & Welsh Wine of the Year Awards ceremony which took place in mid-July. The award acknowledges the significant contribution that the media makes to enhancing and raising the profile of the industry and its wines to the outside world.
Smith said: “I’m bowled over to be awarded Communicator of the Year. I’m a massive fan of English and Welsh wine and the recent flurry of international awards for our local wines is well earned and richly deserved. For me, it’s an honour to be in the company of highly skilled winemakers from Cornwall, Dorset, Essex, Kent and right across the UK. These guys work incredibly hard to make the best wines they can and I’d just like to thank them for the unique flavours they create for us all to enjoy.
“As soon as I got home to Sussex, I popped the magnum of Ridgeview which had been kindly presented to me and somehow it tasted all the more exciting for being made just down the road. Everyone in the UK should taste the local wines from our isles – with each passing year it seems that every sip is a snapshot of quality on the rise.”
A shortlist of three nominations was made up of Smith, broadcaster Oz Clarke and Anthony Foster MW who has been closely involved in English wine through its annual national competition and regionally in East Anglia for many years.