If I need wine, Van Eccpoel  is definitely my favorite spot. Everybody, including my brother,  was always telling me to go there.They have an enormous choice, etc… So one day I decided to go and have a look. Van Eccelpoel is actually a supermarket . So I entered the supermarket and in a distance I saw some wine, so I figured  that would be what everybody was talking about. Honestly, it didn’t look any different from any other supermarket and didn’t seem enormous as everybody said .So at that moment I decided to call my brother as he had been there before….

And he said “no, you should go to the back of the shop  and in-between the cheese and meat counter you should walk down the stairs….” . At first I didn’t really want to believe him as it wouldn’t be the first time that my brother would want to pull a joke on me J . But I thought, let’s hope for the best and I decided to follow his instructions … It was like finding the “Holy Grail “ a true WALHALLA …. An old cellar with more wine than my eye could see….

Once down, Karel Van Eccelpoel immediately came to us to see if he could be of assistance. As I came there to buy sparkling wine (cava, champagne or spumante), I told him what kinds of sparkling I liked and what I was looking for. Upon my likes and dislikes Mr Van Eccelpoel made me taste some wines and explained me about each wine where it came from and what the difference was with the once we already tried. The only problem we still had, was that all of them were great so we didn’t know which one to take…  So Mr Van Eccelpoel made us turn around (not being able to see) and so he made us taste again … and that is when de taste that our preference went to the SIERRA SALINAS BRUT. Price-quality this was really the best choice (for us). What I really like(d) about Van Eccelpoel is that you have wines starting at 5 EUR per bottle up to … EUR and there is no pressure for buying. Although I would really be surprised if you walk out of that cellar empty handed.

It is About 20 min from Antwerp by car, but soooo worth the trip!