In summer 2020, the Primum Familiae Vini association (PFV)—a 12-member group of family-owned wineries that incliudes the Antinoris, the Drouhins and the (Mouton) Rothschilds—announced the creation of the Family Is Sustainability award, a €100,000 ($122,000) prize that will go to a family business that embodies the PFV’s principles of environmental sustainability and social responsibility.
Today, the PFV released its short list of 2021 finalists—none of which are involved in wine:
• Makhila Ainciart Bergara (France), established in 1780, Basque makers of makhilas, or walking sticks, for a client list that has included Pope John Paul II, President Ronald Reagan and Charlie Chaplin
• Chin Jukan Kiln - 沈壽官窯 (Japan), 26th-generation ceramicists making Satsuma-yaki kiln-fired pottery
• Giusto Manetti Battiloro (Italy), 15th-generation world leader in gold leaf, including their ancestor's work with Michelangelo at St. Peter’s in Rome in the late 16th century, creating the golden globe that sits atop the cathedral
• The Goring Hotel (U.K.), fourth-generation luxury hotel in London still in the hands of the founding family, holds the Royal Warrant from Her Majesty the Queen
• Maison Bernard (Belgium), oldest luthier in Europe, making and repairing violins, violas, cellos and bows for some of the world’s greatest musicians, including the recent restoration of a 1723 Stradivarius.
Family companies are essential to the economy, asserts PFV president Matthieu Perrin of the Rhône-based winemaking family behind Château de Beaucastel. "70 percent of the world’s wineries are family-owned; family businesses are responsible for 85 percent of global GDP, and only 16 percent of family businesses survive into the second generation. We believe in the preparation of the next generation through the transmission of knowledge and values developed over the centuries."
"The 12 families in the PFV have a real desire to champion the family business model and to highlight other exemplary companies," PFV chairman Paul Symington, of Portugal's Symington Family Estates, told Unfiltered. The PFV members share core values like pursuing excellence in their work, taking pride in their family histories, social responsibility and demonstrating resilience when challenges seem insurmountable. The 12 PFV companies have survived World Wars I and II, the Spanish flu and now COVID-19 pandemics, as well as internal struggles. "This is why we created the PFV prize: to incentivize excellence, continuity and to show that it can be done."
The winner will be announced in March 2021.
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