Awards and citations:


1997: Le Prix du Champagne Lanson Noble Cuvée Award for investigations into Champagne for the Millennium investment scams

2001: Le Prix Champagne Lanson Ivory Award for investdrinks.org

2011: Vindic d'Or MMXI – 'Meilleur blog anti-1855'

2011: Robert M. Parker, Jnr: ‘This blogger...’:

2012: Born Digital Wine Awards: No Pay No Jay – best investigative wine story

2012: International Wine Challenge – Personality of the Year Award




Thursday 8 May 2014

Macedonia: Day one (8th May 2014)

 Rather hazy views of part of Skopje from Hotel Kamnik
early this morning




We arrived at Skopje Airport around 11pm after two flights with a quick change at Zagreb from a largish jet into a fairly small propeller plane ride on down to the Republic of Macedonia.

Zoran Velkoski and Ilija Malinkovski, the owner of Château Kamnik which currently has 13 hectares of vines along with an hotel where we are staying. This morning Caroline Gilby MW, Stephen Brook and I will be heading out to see some mosaics, while we await the arrival of Steven Spurrier and Julia Harding who rather inexplicably preferred to get up in the middle of the night to catch a very early plane from Heathrow instead of the more civilised option of travelling yesterday late afternoon.


As they eat late here we were able to enjoy some charcuterie and salad with Zoran and Ilija once we had settled into our hotel plus try Kamnik's entry level white and red bag-in-box wines. The refreshing white was a blend of five or varieties including Muscat, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc while the easy drinking red included some Sangiovese in the blend.   
 


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