Jury members
Katia Iontcheva
Bulgaria
DipWSET, Expert, Wine writer
Co-owner and co-editor, KA&TA
Katia Iontcheva has a Master’s degree in Economics and in Oenology. She holds WSET Diploma. Studied at the IMW. Her entire professional career is related to wine. It started in marketing wine in 1999, at the biggest Bulgarian winery at that time, owned by the American Seaboard Corporation. In 2003 she was the first importer of South African wines to Bulgaria and one of the first five wine importers in Bulgaria. For the next 16 years, she imported wines from over 20 different wineries from around the world among which are Kanonkop, Bouchard-Finlayson, Vergelegen, Sadie Family, Simonsig, Montes, Kaiken, Felix Callejo.
In 2012 she became co-author of the first annual bilingual (English and Bulgarian) guide on Bulgarian wine. The tenth edition is awarded the Gourmand Awards 2023 in the wine guide category. She has visited wine regions, wineries, and wine exhibitions in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, the USA, Singapore, and almost everywhere in Europe.
She is a judge at different wine competitions - Concours Mondial de Bruxelles, International Wine Challenge, Mundus Vini, Balkan International Wine Competition, Vinistra Wine and Spirits Awards, Rose Wine Competition, Vinaria, and others. 
