Photo by Star Sabroso I Shot on location at Discovery Primea’s 1824 Whisky and Cigar Bar and Edge
Bel S. Castro
Assistant Dean I College of Hospitality Management, Enderun Colleges
Bel’s commanding presence can be intimidating to most. Being one of the founding faculty members of Enderun Colleges, she is one of the people who has shaped the minds of people from the F&B industry who have passed through the colleges’ hallowed halls to go through their beverage program and get their WSET (Wine & Spirits Education Trust) certifications, which Enderun introduced to the country in 2014. They’ve educated approximately over 400 people already.
Her background is in advertising, and midway through her career, she decided to go client-side and also wanted to tool up, so she got her Master’s Degree in Gastronomy from Le Cordon Bleu at the University of Adelaide in Australia. One of her courses was about wine and spirits, and that’s how she first began approaching it intellectually. “You have the method, and the science, and the geography, and history, all of that,” she shares. “I left corporate and got into teaching. I’ve been teaching for 15 years now.”
She gets to slowly but surely improve the quality of the bar and restaurant scene through teaching, as her former students go on to open establishments. “Their approach to their wine and spirits program is much smarter, savvier because they know their product,” she says. “In the old days, you pretty much put on your table whatever the distributor sold you. You see, in the last ten years, the quality of the beverages that are on the market now has gone up quite a bit. Also, before, people just downed shots; now they taste it. And there are far more tasting classes, wine dinners, and other drink events.” she adds.
When it comes to buying wine, women are the ones who go to the store to purchase wines, because they’re the ones doing the shopping. “Maybe in the restaurant, it’s etiquette that the guy might order the wine, but in-store, mostly females buy the wine,” she observes. “It’s only when it comes to the ultra-expensive wines that the guys come themselves because they want to see the actual bottle.”
Bel sees more representation for women in the wine world. “I can only speak for wine, and there’s a strong female presence on the corporate side, even in Asia,” she observes. “The first Master of Wine in Asia is female, Jeannie Cho Lee. And the youngest MW (Master of Wine) in the world right now is Sarah Heller.
There are general challenges that Asians face though, regardless of gender. “Since we didn’t grow up in a wine country, we have to prove our competency and that we know what we’re talking about and one way of doing that is to get certified,” she says.
What can you advise aspiring women who would like to pursue a career in the drink world?
Tool up. Certification is one pathway. Getting the right employer is another one. Learn your stuff and research. Once you know more about a product, you become a smarter buyer. And if you’re a smarter buyer, I would like to think you also become a smarter seller.
Where do you go for decent drinks in the Philippines, or abroad?
I generally like drinking at home, where I can open a good bottle of wine in the conditions that I like, and enjoy it the way I like it.
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