London

classes and experiences: Wine Tasting

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Gilbert’s original degree was in chemistry, but he caught the wine bug working for Steven Spurrier for seven years in his wine empire in Paris, during which he learned a lot about French wine, food, and spending more than you earn. He progressed to teaching at l’Académie du Vin, Steven’s wine school. Fully sated with all things French, he did a year’s winemaking at Castello di Uzzano in Chianti, where he came to realise that it isn’t only the French who make good wine.

Back in England since the nineties, the Wine and Spirit Education Trust taught him about the rest of the world’s wines -- which he was selling. He passed the WSET diploma and their certified educator qualification. He judges at the International Wine Challenge, he is a member of the Association of Wine Educators, and Circle of Wine Writers, so that’s the serious side. It’s presenting he enjoys most, though, and his style has been refined, if that is the right word, by twenty years of wine education for corporate and private groups.

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