Stories of the nominees

Artem Kuzmenchuk: my career path in the wine industry started in 2011

Ukraine

My name is Artem Kuzmenchuk, I am a wine & spirits journalist. My career path in the wine industry started in 2011. At that time, I worked as a journalist for Vinofest, a magazine about wine and gastronomy (Kyiv, Ukraine). For the Vinofest magazine, I organized tastings with wine experts of Ukraine, and composed wine ratings. Besides, I wrote articles about wine and wine regions, and performed interviews with wine experts. In 2012, I became the editor-in-chief of the magazine. That year, I received the Art Wine Fest award in the category “Best Publication in the Field of Coverage of the Wine Industry in Ukrainian Media”.

n 2014, I got involved in the editorial project for Amorim. I visited a cork production facility in Portugal, promoting the Amorim brand in Ukraine. In 2014, I became an editor of the Wine&Spirit section in XXL magazine. I was responsible for writing articles about wine and spirits, composing wine ratings for the magazine.

In 2017, I became the winner of the competition “The best article about wine” by W#. Wine Project. The organizer was the wine importer Bayadera Group (Ukraine). This brought new opportunities. In 2017, I started working as an author for Guide to GoodWine magazine (media of the wine importer Wine Bureau). I prepared analytical materials on the wine market, wine reviews for the magazine, took part in tastings, did interviews with sommeliers and winemakers.

Twisting my career path, in 2018, I became the Head of the PR department of the Alcomag wine store chain (a company that imports wine to Ukraine, PE Shevchenko S.A.). Here I was immersed in the world of collaboration with the press, organization and conduction of tastings, meetings with winemakers, preparation of content for social networks and a chain store website.

In 2019, I became the editor of the Wine&Spirit department at PostEat. I prepare analytical articles on the alcohol market of Ukraine, hold interviews with experts of the Ukrainian wine market, and act as a wine expert for the publication.

Apart from that, I provide private wine tastings, educational wine workshops, preparation of advertising campaigns for Ukrainian and foreign wine brands.

In 2021, I have been preparing articles about Ukrainian winemakers and winemaking of Ukraine for PostEat (site about gastronomy, wine and bar culture of Ukraine), which include:

  • Interview with the founder of the winery Prince Trubetskoy Alexey Dyakov (Ukraine, Kherson region)
  • Interview with Evgeniy Shneideris, founder of Beykush Winery (Ukraine, Nikolaev region)
  • Interview with the founder of the Kolonist winery Ivan Plachkov (Ukraine, Odesa region)
  • Interview with the founder of the Stakhovsky winery Sergey Stakhovsky (Ukraine, Zakarpattia region)
  • Interview with the founder of V. Petrov winery Valery Petrov (Ukraine, Odessa region)
  • Interview with the founder of the wine brand myWine Eduard Gorodetsky (Ukraine, Odessa region)
  • Interview with winemaker Bogdan Pavliy (Ukraine, Khmelnytsky region)
  • Interview with winemaker Denis Khalupenko (Ukraine, Kherson region)
  • Interview with the winemaker Georgy Molchanov (Ukraine, Mykolaiv region) and many other pieces.

Regarding the articles about winemakers and wineries from different regions of the world for the printed magazine Guide to Good Wine, I have in my portfolio:

  • Brand of months: review of Maison M. Chapoutier wine company (France)
  • Interview with a whiskey brand ambassador BerRiach Stewart Buchanan
  • An article on the most famous robberies of the winery’s wine cellars, restaurants and wine collections
  • Brand of months: review of Torres wine company (Spain)
  • Brand of months: review of  Bollinger wine company (France)

Due to the collaboration with Wines of Portugal Academy – ViniPortugal, I have been preparing articles about winemaking of Portugal for the magazine XXL ( for example, “Portugal is a country of wine discoveries”).