About Rotterdam Wine Lovers

Rotterdam Wine Lovers is an international wine club based in Rotterdam. We organize monthly tastings, biannual wine dinners and once a year a wine trip. We have approximately 700 members in total, with 15-30 members attending per event.

No prior wine knowledge required

Rotterdam wine lovers is an open and inclusive wine club. It’s for anyone who loves wine, either you are a wine connoisseur, a wine rookie or just a happy wine drinker. You'd like to learn more about wine, explore and drink good wine, mingle with wine enthusiasts, teach the newbies, and learn from the experts. No snobs, just wine lovers!

Tastings in English

The city offers a variety of tasting opportunities in Dutch, and they are great. Back in 2015 when we started, we felt the city was missing a wine club where people who didn’t speak the language yet could join, feel welcome and have fun. And considering that the Dutch are the people with the highest percentage of English speakers in Europe (after native UK), here we are!

Who am I?

Hi, I'm Elef! Full name is Eleftheria, if you can pronounce it - but Elef is fine. Nice to e-meet you.

I can't help but love wine! You see, I come from a Greek family of winemakers. We made wine at home as long as I remember. Grandpa, mom, dad, uncles, aunts, and yes, kids too! 

I see wine as a beautiful thing that has been inspiring and bringing people together for centuries. It's the most amazing proof that the synergy of nature and humans can make miracles! All the more why it should be enjoyed by more and more people.

 I do not get why we've made wine seem so complicated, and let it be truly enjoyed by a the few. 

I love organizing thematic events to bring together fellow wine lovers and foodies. In our events, we discover and enjoy great wines in a chill vibe, and mingle with great people! We always have good bites and learn a thing or two about wine. 

Attention! This is nothing like the wine tastings you're used to: no spitting, no notes-of-wild-strawberry-and-sweaty-saddle, no snobs, please!

Long [personal] story short

Hi, my name is Eleftheria (short: Elef). I'm a Greek living in NL. I started [just] Wine Lovers in September 2015 as a side-project, in order to learn more about wine, meet people who share my passion. Isn't it always more fun when you are sharing?! 

I come from a family of winemakers. Taking a stroll down memory lane, I’d see me and my brother as kids peering at my grandfather as he was caring for his grapevines all year long; planting, pruning and fertilizing them. We would often hide in his cellar to take a hint of this particular sour smell wine barrels leave in a small underground space. And we would just wait in anticipation for that weekend of late September when all the family would come together “to make wine”. It was a day of hard work but also a family feast and a fun day for the small ones, whose main responsibility was to press the juice out of the grapes with our little feet ...

With the kids growing up and the grandparents (even parents) departing, this tradition gradually faded away. Moving away from home for studies and later on to a new home in the Netherlands these memories seemed to have almost vanished. I was already building a marketing career in technology, helping startups take off. This couldn't seem further away from wine. To my surprise, I discovered that these memories have been latent for years, but still working in my head.

In early 2015, while I was sipping wine with my -- soon to be oenologist -- baby brother, we both sort of revealed to each other that we have this dream: to one day have our own proper professional winery and vineyard. Of course, we both have a long way to go, but the dream was voiced. It was out there.

Since its expression, this idea has been taking shape in my mind. How could I study wine faster, make learning more fun, meet people who share the same passion, get to know the local & regional wine scene? Here is when I decided it was time for me to make a tiny little step towards the dream: and this is to build a community of peers who love wine, want to explore it, uncomplicate it, enjoy it and share it with great people. 

The first Rotterdam Wine Lovers was a cozy meetup of 20 wine lovers. The plan was to host one every 2 months. Three years later, we have organized 23 meetups, tasted 138 wines, and host monthly tastings of with 15-30 wine lovers.

Hope to meet you soon in person and chat with you over good wine and good food!