24-year-old Margaux Balemans from Vosselaar (Antwerp Province) has won the title of ‘Best Sommelier of Belgium 2024’ Ms Balemans is a sommelier at the celebrated Sangliers des Ardennes restaurant in Durbuy (Wallonia) A sommelier or wine waiter recommends the best wines to accompany a customer's dish Ms Balemans studied at Hotel School Ter Groene Poorte in Bruges (West Flanders) The Belgian Guild of Sommeliers awarded the prize at the Horeca Expo Margaux Balemans just missed out on first place but this year she was crowned as winner and may call herself the 'Best Sommelier of Belgium' all year She beat Vincent Pharazijn of restaurant De Jonkman (Bruges) and Elizio Masson of Hof van Cleve (Kruisem – East Flanders) Ms Balemans also won the Young Sommelier Award of Excellence the title ‘Best Sommelier of Belgium’ is officially protected and is the only title recognised both in Belgium and internationally we obviously want to use this competition to draw attention to our wonderful profession There is a realisation that this is a profession on the occupational shortage list We want to display our profession in a positive light’ a spokesperson for the guild told VRT A sommelier can win the award only once in his or her career The winner can also compete to be selected for the European and World Sommelier Championships organised by the international sommeliers’ association Italian metal outfit Lacuna Coil unveil a run of European dates this winter Lacuna Coil have announced a European tour in support of their new album Delirium The Italian metal outfit will kick off their 30-date winter trek at Vosselaar’s Biebob in Belgium on October 21 following their Australian tour earlier that month The run also includes six UK dates in November Last month, singer Cristina Scabbia admitted the band were not taken seriously when they first started out in Italy. She said: “At the beginning it wasn’t easy because when you say you’re a musician ‘Ok but what’s your job?’ ‘I’m a musician,’ ‘Yeah but what’s your real job?’ ‘No “People still don’t look at musicians as people who really work At the beginning my parents were worried for me ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ – especially coming from Italy There aren’t a lot of rock or metal bands from Italy.” ItalyJul 01: Piazzola Sul Brenta Postpay Sound ItalyJul 09: Les Remparts De Longwy Rock’n’Roll Train Festival FranceJul 22: Vinci Festa Dell’Unicorno ItalyAug 13: Graz Metal On The Hill Festival AustraliaOct 15: Queensland West End Max Watts House Of Music GermanyOct 25: Berlin White Trash Ballroom Czech RepublicNov 07: Pratteln Konzertfabrik Z7 ItalyDec 02: Istanbul KucukCiftlik ParkDec 03: Izmir Container Hall Sign up below to get the latest from Metal Hammer Lacuna Coil interviewed by sock puppets Former TeamRock news desk member Christina joined our team in late 2015 and although her time working on online rock news was fairly brief she made a huge impact by contributing close to 1500 stories Christina also interviewed artists including Deftones frontman Chino Moreno and worked at the Download festival Christina left rock journalism to pursue a career in current affairs she was named Local Weekly Feature Writer of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards but only if I could criticise the Constitution." Wardruna's Einar Selvik on nature black metal and the importance of having a message Sounds like Metallica!” Watch Donny Osmond headbanging to The Osmonds’ Crazy Horses played at 33rpm and sounding like a lost doom metal classic "some music was meant to stay underground..." We post metal news every day, throughout the day, covering thousands of metal bands including underground and unsigned bands Below is the latest news, but check back often for updates. You can also browse our news archive or find news by band Click a date below to read that day's news CROSSFAITH have announced a headlining European tour Set to take place in October and November this year the tour will see the Japanese metal band touring across mainland Europe and the UK in celebration of their fifteenth anniversary as a band Speaking about the tour frontman Kenta ‘Ken’ Koie says “we just got back from festival run in Europe and had such a great time out there we’ll be returning back to UK & Europe and this will be our first headline tour since COVID I know that you guys have been waiting for it just like us so we are very excited to celebrate our 15th anniversary with all of you We will play new songs and older songs as well make sure to follow our discography and get sweaty with us For more information on CROSSFAITH like their official page on Facebook This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.