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DWWA judge profile: Rytis Jurkenas

Rytis Jurkenas is a judge at the 2016 Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA).

Rytis Jurkenas profile:

Rytis Jurkenas is joint director of Clos & Cru, a resource devoted to Champagne, and the manager of Kalba. Lt, the largest educational company in his native Lithuania.

After graduating from medical school, Jurkenas worked in the pharmaceutical industry for about 10 years and only started to learn about wine in 1993, due to limited availability in Lithuania. His discovery of Champagne came nine years later, and this has since become an absolute passion.

Since 2002, Jurkenas has been a regular visitor to the Champagne region, where he goes to taste and to learn the latest about the terroir, the technology and the winemaking process. He currently holds more than 3,500 tasting notes for Champagnes, judges regularly in wine competitions in Lithuania, and was asked to judge at FINE Champagne magazine’s Top 100 Champagnes for 2013/2014 in Reims. Jurkenas also organises tastings devoted, naturally, to Champagne.

Rytis Jurkenas was first a a DWWA judge in 2014.

Rytis Jurkenas: DWWA 2014 judge

Find out more about the world-renowned names that make up the 2014 Decanter World Wine Awards judging line-up in this

DWWA 2014: Champagne judging panel

Find out about our Decanter World Wine Awards 2014 Champagne judging panel with biographies of the Regional Chair Richard Juhlin

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