Congratulations to Paul Van Calster for passing the Rhône Master Level exam with highest honors!
About Paul:
Born 31/12/1954.
My professional career : 43 years in KBC (retailbank), from Junior Clerk to Office-Director with 12 employees.
Wine-enthusiast since the beginning of the 1980’s starting with supermarket-wines and then always going up in quality… always attracted to know more … always searching for reasons of taste, aroma’s, mouthfeel, … trying to understand the wine.
In 1989 I fell in love with the region Dentelles de Montmirail (Vaucluse, France) and the grenache-syrah-mourvèdre-wines. I go there yearly since 30 years for touristic vacation and visiting winemakers. After my professional retirement, I decided to start with a small/local wine-business, specializing in wines of the Dentelles de Montmirail-region.
Wine Education
> First course was Amicitia Leuven ( 1989 - teacher Harry De Schepper).
> COOVI-CERIA Anderlecht (1990/91 – teachers Harry De Schepper and Jef Bessemans), a course of 2 evenings during a whole schoolyear. Wines of France one evening, the other evening was for winemaking processes + Italy and Spain.
> Then 15 years of tasting…tasting ... tasting and focusing on France. Visiting almost all de French wine-regions. Some small courses : Licata Academy (Italy) and Australian Wines.
> PIVA Antwerp (2014-2016) wine-course 5 semesters (and at the same time finishing my career office-director KBC).
> Starting my own small wine-company with direct import from the ‘vigneron indépendant’ in favorite region Le Pays des Dentelles de Montmirail.
> Wine Spirit Education Trust Level 3 ( 2018 - Winewise Antwerp) passed With Distinction.
> French Wine Scholar (2019 – Winewise Antwerp) with Highest Honors.
> FWS Master-Level Rhône (2020).
The Master-Level Program helps me to understand more the soil, grapes and climat and the link between them. It gives me more ‘body’ in discussions with winemakers and clients.
Last thing I want to do is a Tasting-course in ‘Université de Suze le Rousse’, tasting of Rhône wines.
