Judges 2026

Kruno Filipović is part of the Croatian WSET team as a certified educator for Wine Academy Croatia, which is the license proprietor in his country. Owner of Makija & Drača – a small private business set on promoting excellence in wine business. He writes for the regional daily paper with nationwide distribution, Slobodna Dlamacija, as an author for all things wine related. His affiliation with WSET opened many doors for him. For a brief period of time, he worked in wine marketing. His main focus were Croatian wines, but he tried to learn more about Central Europe and was given a chance to present Croatian wines in Warsaw and Vienna thanks to his small contribution to the “New Europe” project. Kruno has spent several years in wine trade being involved both with foreign and domestic wine portfolio. He was in charge of in-hose education for the sales teams, both retail and wholesale, as well as education for their clients and their staff. He is a regular at most wine events as a presenter or an educator in numerous workshops and he has written a considerable number of pages on wine through the company’s blog. Teaching was his greatest passion from the beginning and still is. Whenever he is up to the task, he tries to use what he has learned to assist those looking to raise the bar and improve wine promotion and wine business.