Two leading spirits judges from Europe confirmed for our 2025 panel

The South Africa Selection by CMB is committed to creating a beneficial and valuable competition for South and Southern African spirits distillers by ensuring that our spirits judging panels are composed of the best available tasters and industry leaders. The organizers of the South Africa Selection is also working hard to create real benefits for entrants and winners, including:

• a dedicated spirits portal on Port2Port;
• two marketing events in Cape Town and Gauteng for the 2025 medal and trophy winners;
• representation at the CMB Spirits Selection pavilion at 2025 Paris Wine.

2025 Spirits panel of six influential spirits judges, include two leading spirits specialists from Europe:

Marcus Rudek from Germany is a Bavarian spirit sommelier, vice-chairman of the Bavarian Spirit Sommelier Association (Bayerische Edelbrandsommeliers) and Certified Scotch Professional (Council of Whiskey Masters).   He started his career in spirits by selling whiskies and craft spirits and hosting whisky, gin and fruit brandy tastings. He has subsequently worked as Malt Ambassador for Campari, Lantenhammer (German fruit brandy, gin and whisky producer) and still currently for German Whisky producer, Slyrs.

Jamie Baxter from the UK is a master distiller as well as a distillery and distilling consultant. He has built over 100 distilleries in UK, Europe, Africa and Asia, and acted as a consultant for many others.   Jamie’s in-depth experience and understanding of the neutral spirit required for vodka and gin production, as well as botanical recipe development, has proved invaluable for many in those areas. Jamie’s work in the distillery industry has required the installation of equipment for the production of vodka, whisky, absinthe, eaux-de-vie and rum.

• Joining them are local experts, mixologist Kurt Schlechter, master distiller Marlene Bester and industry consultant, spirits writer and educator, Leah van Deventer.

• The 2025 competition opens for on-line entries on 1 May. We invite our producers to take advantage of the Early Bird

reduced entry fees for the month of May. For more information, please visit

South Africa Selection by CMB or contact Lorraine Immelman on

lorraine.immelman@vinopres.com