Our guest of honor will be Caroline Gilby

Dr. Caroline Gilby MW is an author, writer and consultant specialising in Central and Eastern Europe and her first book The Wines of Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova was published in July 2018 and won the Prix de L’OIV in 2020. Among other titles, she contributes to Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book, The Oxford Companion to Wine, The World Atlas of Wine, and Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopaedia.  She also contributes on a freelance basis to Decanter, Jancisrobinson.com and Revija Vino. Caroline is an international wine judge and is panel chair for Northern & Eastern Europe and the Balkans at Decanter World Wine Awards and chair of judging at Vinistra in Croatia.  Caroline was the first foreigner to be awarded the title Friend of Hungarian Winemakers in 2018. In 2019, she was appointed Vranec ambassador by Wines of Macedonia and Wine of Moldova awarded her a medal of gratitude. Prior to her career as a writer, Gilby spent seven years as a senior wine buyer at Augustus Barnett off-licences, with responsibility for wines from Eastern Europe – where she first encountered wines from today’s Slovenia. She holds a doctorate in plant biology and has been a Master of Wine since 1992.