As a regular undertaking around this time of year, the DOCa Rioja Control Board, the University of La Rioja and the Rioja Oenologists’ Association have signed a partnership agreement intended to broaden the education of students on Oenology degree courses by means of a three-month grant for the student who wins the Best Dissertation in Oenology, an initiative that the three institutions have been promoting for some years now.

The purpose of the grant is primarily to recognize students’ hard work, thank them for choosing a specialist subject so closely related to this region, and incentivise the start of their professional career by providing them with knowledge of the different functions carried out by the various departments of the Control Board, access to the administrative side, and more direct technical involvement with the tasting panel, the wine classification process and the sales and marketing team responsible for managing the promotional campaigns for Rioja wine both within and outside Spain. In addition, the winning student will have access to free membership of the Rioja Oenologists’ Association for two years.

Students interested in entering the competition (and winning the grant) should send the Control Board a summary of their dissertation before 12 November 2018, which should consist of no more than three pages plus another page summarizing the complete contents of the project.

The documents should be sent by email to consejo@riojawine.com along with a poster (in PowerPoint and PDF) that clearly and concisely summarizes the content of their work.

It should also include the certificate showing the grade awarded to the project by the University of La Rioja and, finally, a PDF with the student’s full name and contact details.

The appraisal of the project and the decision on the award will be taken by a joint committee of four people from the Governing Board of the Rioja Oenologists’ Association and the DOCa Rioja Control Board.

See competition rules