Wine Australia has supported two bursaries as part of the recently announced 2024-25 Great Wine Capitals Outbound Knowledge Exchange Bursary Program. The annual program enables South Australian wine industry professionals, researchers and academics to travel to other wine regions across the globe and share their learnings with the state’s wine industry upon their return.
Each bursary, valued at $6000, supports travel to one or more Great Wine Capitals — a global network of 11 internationally-renowned wine regions of which Adelaide is a member — between October 2025 and March 2026.
The Wine Australia–funded bursaries were awarded to Samantha Scarratt, chief executive officer of Vinehealth Australia, and Yihe (Eva) Sui, an associate lecturer and postdoctoral researcher in the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine at the University of Adelaide.
Samantha Scarratt
Samantha Scarratt will travel to the Napa Valley in the United States to explore how viticulturists and researchers manage Pierce’s disease, caused by the bacterial pathogen Xylella fastidiosa. Although not present in Australia, Xylella fastidiosa has devastated vineyards and horticultural crops overseas.
Samantha will investigate how viticulturists and researchers are managing Pierce’s disease and adapting to the presence of the pathogen. Her findings will help inform South Australia’s preparedness for the disease in the event it is discovered.
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Yihe (Eva) Sui
Eva will visit Hawke’s Bay, in New Zealand, to exchange knowledge on wine stability management, focusing on sustainable alternatives to traditional stabilisation methods.
As well as visiting the School of Viticulture and Wine Science at the Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT) in Hawke’s Bay, to engage with researchers, share insights and explore opportunities for collaboration, she will also meet with local winemakers to learn more about their approaches to achieving white wine stability.
Samantha and Eva are part of a broader cohort of eight South Australian bursary recipients heading to regions including Bordeaux, Napa Valley, Porto and Hawke’s Bay to study topics spanning wine tourism, winemaking, vineyard resilience and emerging technologies.
For further information about the Great Wine Capitals Outbound Knowledge Bursary Program click here