DWWA judge profile: Aristide Spies MS

Aristide Spies MS is a judge at the 2019 Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA)

Aristide Spies MS

Aristide Spies MS discovered his passion for wine at 12 years old, during a family holiday in the Périgord, and immediately enrolled in a series of wine tasting and cookery courses on returning home to Belgium. Following secondary studies, he spent a year as an exchange student in Australia, before beginning his wine career at the one Michelin star restaurant Les Forges du Pont d’Oye as assistant to Pascal Carré, three times winner of Best Sommelier of Belgium.

In 2007, Spies won this same title for himself, also winning the Club Gastronomique Prosper Montagné’s Premier Sommelier de Belgique. Spies then went on to represent Belgium at the Best Sommelier of Europe competition in Sofia in 2008, where he reached the semi-finals, and at the World’s Best Sommelier 2013 competition in Tokyo, where he was a finalist and won the bronze medal.

He passed the WSET Diploma and MS Diploma in London. Spies has written and broadcast about wine for Belgian magazines and radio/TV. He currently runs La Cave des Sommeliers, a chain of wine shops in Belgium and Luxembourg, with his former mentor Pascal Carré.

Aristide Spies MS was first a DWWA judge in 2014.