2011 – La Douce France
In 2011, I, Nadien de Visser, packed my bags and left for a study trip to sweet France. I left the Rotterdam School of Management for six months at the University of Aix-Marseille. My new home became the picturesque town Aix-en-Provence.
It all happened on the terrace across from Hotel de Ville. Not a bustling square, but with a lovely spring sun and a rosé in hand, you don't need much else. That first sip of rosé under the Provençal sun changed my life . It was something I'd never tasted before. (Mind you: I was a student and never got past a Chardonnay in my hometown of Rotterdam.) The damage was done: I wanted to know everything about this!
I visited chateaux in the area, went to every tasting I could find, and really developed a taste for it. Every week, I sought instruction and advice from the owner of the local wine shop, returning home with Sancerre, Gigondas, or Beaumes-de-Venise. Meanwhile, I had written my first wine book— The Wine Bible – ordered, so I could immediately look up all the areas. Every page told me something new.
After six months, my French adventure was over, and I filled the TGV with wine. I couldn't wait to share my wine stories with the folks back home and organized my first wine tasting for friends and family. A party was born. We'll do it again, and again...
That's how Le Club des Vins was born – I'd already come up with the name in France. A few years and dozens of wine tastings later, I decided to create a website. "The 2000s called, they want their blog back." The blogging scene's heyday might have been over, but I didn't care. So I started typing...
2017 – WSET3 achieved
A few years after France, I enrolled in the SDEN3 wine course at Wijnkoperij Platenburg ( which, funnily enough, I now teach myself ). After that, I decided to continue with WSET3. In early 2017, I passed with merit and became increasingly fascinated by wine, writing about it, and leading tastings.
2018 – Layoff from Hallmark
Gradually, this hobby started to take shape. At the end of 2018, I decided to go all in: I quit my job at Hallmark Cards, saying goodbye to my monthly salary. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but looking back, it was the best decision of my life. It was a leap into the unknown, but waking up every day and doing what you love—who wouldn't want that?
In the meantime, I am registering for the next course: WSET Diploma Course .
2019 – first podcast
And guess what? We have a super-fun class. I decide to create a podcast with Jan Jaap Altenburg, then sommelier at Restaurant Bentinck in Amerongen. It's the first Dutch podcast about wine. Our first episode is enjoyable, but at the same time, we don't understand audio at all. Fortunately, our listeners are forgiving, and the listening figures continue to rise every month.
2021 – WSET4 achieved
Those two years of COVID-19 were tough, but Le Club survived. WSET was delayed because classes couldn't continue, but I eventually earned that qualification with merit. I can now call myself DipWSET. behind my name. Because I had the best results of my year, I get Wine academy offered. That will be the next mission.
More happened in 2021. I was nominated for Wine Woman of the Year . I have great admiration for the other nominees this year and the past two years. It's a tremendous honor to be among them.
Update: Claudia van Dongen took home the title. And rightly so, as she's been in the wine world for years and even created her own wine education program (the dream).
2022 – Covid is over
The first two years of my business were crazy. I'd given myself a year to explore whether I could turn Le Club des Vins into a fully self-sufficient business. I succeeded, just barely, in 2019. I'd survived the year, learned a lot, and was eager for a second year of business. Then, COVID happened. Everything changed. No more courses, but suddenly a huge number of orders for De Fanshop. I expanded the Fanshop with new products and launched the Exam training . In the spring of 2022, COVID slowly but surely disappeared from daily life, and the "new normal" began.
And that new normal includes: Travel ! Many wine regions are eager to show off their region and let you taste their wines. I'm flying to the Women in Wine Expo in Georgia, can look inside Herdade de Esporaõ in Alentejo, leave for South Africa for Cape Wine, follow the Spanish Wine Educator Course in Madrid, learn all the ins and outs about sherry in Jerez and also join the Volcanic Wine Trip (a combination visit to Soave and Santorini ). Great, I like this new normal.
The doors of the Le Club des Vins' first physical store . Goals: a shop-in-shop in the new Vindict Wine store at Docklandseweg 3-5 in Amsterdam-Noord.
