Valencia Wine Consulting & Tours was founded by sommelier Johan de Smedt, who is originally from the Netherlands. He’s a social anthropologist with many years of experience in humanitarian work in Africa, with organisations like Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) and Oxfam.

Johan has been living in Valencia since 2008, and did his sommelier training in Valencia; he is specialised in Valencian wines, and has visited most of the Valencian wineries, to taste their wines. Valencia used to be a bulk wine producer, but nowadays the region produces top wines, often made with local grapes that you don’t find anywhere else. Valencia produces mostly red wines, but also outstanding white wines and Cava – and these could also be organic, biodynamic or natural wines.

After the sommelier training Johan ventured into tourism, doing wine tours and tastings for local agencies, but in 2016 he decided to set up his own agency, and do everything himself. The rest is history, as they say…