My name is Pieter Rosenthal and I was born in The Netherlands just before Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon.

Although a country of little significance when it comes to winemaking, the Dutch are great imbibers of the golden and ruby stuff and have always played an important part on mainly the old-world wine stage. My earliest memories of wine are of the Sunday dinner table, where my brother and I were given our first taste. Can't remember what it was, but I do remember I didn't particularly like it. Since it was white, and Muscadet was all the rage in 70's Holland, I think that might have been it.

After the first tentative sips I slowly got the taste for wine. Another great Dutch favourite was, and still is, St Emilion. After my parents attended a dinner and tasting of this wonderful wine, I started reading up about the region and its wines. Needless to say I was too young to go to the tasting as well, but I enjoyed the books for now.

My uncle had one vine in his patio garden. No one knows what variety, although more than likely it yielded table grapes. Anyway, we made a wine of it. Plenty of chaptalization, adding sugar to the must for those less interested in technical terms, was practiced to end up with an almost sherry like wine. It wouldn't have won any medals, but boy, were we proud of it. I've still got one bottle to remind me of the 'vintage festivals' we had.

The fact I had actually made wine and had also worked in a restaurant peeling potatoes got me into the Hotelschool in The Hague. It will come as no surprise there was a certain amount of drinking, much less tasting going on. The highlight for me was a wine trip visiting Alsace, the Cote d'Or in Burgundy, Chablis and Champagne in the early 90's. My first ever 'barrel sample' was a St. Aubin 1989 by Marc Colin. We all got a bottle of what I think was the '88 signed by the man himself.

Following my graduation, I moved to Scotland where I worked at Gleneagles for a while. Subsequent jobs saw me move to Antwerp in Belgium, back to The Netherlands, (where we now incidentally have our own Tartan) and as if by magic to Scotland again. My current job as a senior business analyst is not even closely related to hospitality or wine for that matter.

My relationship with wine was rekindled in all seriousness in 2004, when I got a 'Distinction Pass' for the WSET Advanced Certificate. In 2006 I decided to continue to the next level, the Diploma of Wine & Spirits, which I completed in January 2009. I was honoured to be awarded the Thierry Cabanne Scholarship in London's Guild Hall on January 19th for my efforts and look forward to working with Thierry's in the summer.

Winedogs introduces you to Dede; Cork and Bottle's very own 'winedog'.