Bodegas El Maestro Sierra has held today the award ceremony of the II Pilar Plá Pechovierto Award for Entrepreneurship and Excellence which, as was announced a couple of weeks ago, has fallen to the candidacy “Flor, la yeasta del sherry” by Noelia Herrera and Carmen Granados.
In an act that has been charged with emotion, María del Carmen Borrego Plá, owner of the winery and president of the jury, has explained some of the merits treasured by the winners to win the award, among them “her deep pedagogical perspective regarding the it came as a hallmark of our cultural heritage”.
Precisely the winners, Noelia Herrera and Carmen Granados, have collected the award with great emotion together with the protagonist of their initiative, the mascot Flor, a stuffed animal thought, created and finally made in their family environment and that serves to narrate the didactic process and education they carry out.
For her part, the mayoress of Jerez, Mamen Sánchez, has symbolically collected the extraordinary recognition given to Lola Flores on the centenary of her birth, for the transcendence of the Jerez and universal figure. The mayoress has precisely explained the parallels between the artist herself and Doña Pilar, who gives the award its name, “two extraordinary women both born in the 20s of the 20th century”.
This year’s jury was made up of María del Carmen Borrego Plá, as president, Ana Cabestrero Ortega, as oenologist and commercial director, and Rosario Ortíz Sumariva, a member of the Maestro Sierra family, as lifetime members; and by Don Antonio Manuel Ramírez Sánchez, as winner of the First Pilar Plá Pechovierto Prize for El Pasaje Tabanco, and Sergio Sánchez González, director of BBVA, both as non-permanent members; as well as by Sonia Arnáiz del Bosque, as secretary of the jury, with voice but no vote, who has also been responsible for conducting the event.
The ceremony, which began with an emotional memory of Luisa Nieto, wife of Francisco Salas, a close collaborator of the winery and a regular at Maestro Sierra activities, was attended by numerous personalities and political and public representatives from both the City Council of Jerez and the Provincial Council of Cádiz, the Congress and the Senate, members of different entities such as the Regulatory Council, the Ateneo de Jerez, the Academy of San Dionisio, AMMA or the Sherry Explorer, among others.
The Tabanco El Pasaje, awarded with this recognition last year, has been responsible for putting the flamenco touch to the event, which has concluded with an aperitif of honor.
In the coming weeks, the bases for the opening of the III Pilar Plá Pechovierto Award for Entrepreneurship and Excellence will be made public, which will be delivered, as has already been done this year, on the Saturday before March 8, the date of death of Mrs. Pilar.