The real wine detective: Jim Budd is IWC Personality of the Year

Inconspicuous as ever, Budd on a mission

The UK wine industry shifted from medals to trophy mode this month with, last week, Decanter World Wine Awards, last night, the International Wine Challenge Awards.

My favourite winner of the night was fellow Loire fan, Jim Budd, who was named IWC Personality of the Year for his investigative journalism.

While he may be better known on the world stage for the “Campo-gate”exposé (see here for an article by Mike Steinberger which sums up Jim’s courage in the field), since setting up his website Investdrinks.org in 2000, Budd has been dogged in his pursuit of dodgy wine companies.

Collecting his award, Jim said he’d never seen so many dubious companies and called for more hard edged journalism.

You can read all the results here.