A Conversation with Steven Spurrier

thank you very much thank you thank you thank you well I would do want to point out that I have my phone here I thought I'd do Jerry modern and have my notes on this rather than folded paper in front of me but I wanted to say that just so you didn't think I was checking box scores or emails while we were talking so of course you've had a chance so far to meet Stephen you have been at various times a wine merchant a wine writer a wine critic and author I'd like to point out this very fine book which is the subject of much of what we'll talk about today a restaurant tour you an educator or wine judge wine insider a wine provocateur you work for auction houses and now you are a producer of this very fine English sparkling wine and I would hasten to say that you have often been many of these things two three four of them at once you seem to juggle quite a lot in the forward to the book which is really fabulous you'll have a chance to if you haven't already bought it Steven Spurrier wine a way of life you will be signing I believe it right after this right off this yeah which is a terrific opportunity in the forward and it's a perfect foreword for today you say it has as will be shown made for a bumpy ride at the end of George Taber's book on the judgment at Paris I meaning you imported is saying that I am still totally 100% in love with wine the places where it is produced and the people who produce it for wine has given me more than I could ever have imagined and I think when we for all of us who saw the seminar this morning and for those will see it tomorrow I suppose that you really that shows you're the thank you ya know so I want to jump into the book and really your life but before we do that before we get to the beginning of it all we should talk about what's happening now as in bright Valley and what we have in the glass well what you haven't thank you very much for being here and I don't think that David now I gonna keep going for 90 minutes unless you ask you ask some questions so I mean if want to ask anything do please bright Valley vineyard was started our first vines went in in 2009 but it began as an idea back in 1987 my wife had bought we had it when we came back from Paris I had managed before the long and property market went completely berserk to buy a nice big house in Clapham which is south of the river and it had a big garden and so but in the Middle Ages my wife said if I'm gonna have a big house for the garden I'd rather have it in the country so I said okay but I need a flat in London so we decided to look for a place in the country and it would be easy for me to find a flat in London so we looked and looked and looked and eventually thanks to Michael broadband we focus on eyes and Dorset which we subsequently bought and it was a very nice house but it just had a big garden and my wife says well where am I going to put the horses well I didn't say the horses it had a good wine cellar too so I was very keen on the highest and my wife said I can't buy there's no room so the people selling it said actually there's a 200 acre farm at the edge of the village coming up for sale maybe if you need space you could buy that so we went up and looked at the farm and it was full of Jacque and so I just out of interest put a couple of blocks of chalk in my pocket and then it was decided over two or three days that my wife would make an offer for the house and the farm and so on and so forth and I was still working in Paris in those days so I took the two blocks of chalk back with me put them on my desk in front of Misha Burton who is the Robert Parker of who is my top prof at the time at like adamandeva and is now the most important influence in French wines and I said me sure where do you think those are from he looked at them and said what champagne of course I said no they're from South Dawson he said well you should plant a vineyard so how do I planted I would have planted Pinot Blanc so I like being a blonde in fact the first two white wines I had the lunch with peanut block and but I didn't but I did have Michel Ross from Chablis come over and spend a day with this weekend with us and he took a bucket of soil back to Chablis to have it analyzed and the analysis came back very suitable for Chardonnay and cool-climate grapes like Pinot Noir okay so that was 87 I did nothing about it thank God then time pasts and about 1995 I'm invited to the awards of the international one in spirit competition and as I walk in just like you just now is I'm handing a glass of sparkling wine and the Chairman says what do you think that is I said well it's champagne blonde a blaster and the Chardonnay probably a Grand Cru white night timber night timber a vineyard in Kent which has been created by an American from Chicago who only bought the house because he collected Olding this Oakland Oaks I mean odigo 13th century 14th century 15th century so he was very well-off so he bought a 15th century house to put his oak furniture collection and and then he got a bit bored and he likes champagne so he had some people in Champagne create a vineyard for him and night Imber had beaten all the Grand Champions so that was 19 Brazil the brand leader with over well over a hundred hectares they're making over a million bottles a year and then in 2004 I found it that recounted World Wine Awards and in 2010 Ridgeview in Sussex night champions in Kent a winery I'd very much admired did the same thing it got the decanter platinum trophy beating all the sparkling wines all over the world that I thought okay you by that time I'd already began to plan the vineyard but that confirmed everything but anyway in 2007 I created a dossier about English sparkling wine and I took it to jean-claude or John sharp was headphone expert and they got very excited and they sent that top sparkling wine people over and they wanted to do a 30 hectares 70 70 acre joint venture with me build a winery so on and so forth but used two hundred thousand bottles and that would have been a great idea but when all the analysis came in and our farms in a big bowl and it's south-facing just a bike but the strokes are quite steep the analysis said well they're 10 or 12 hectares which are perfect the rest another 20 hectares which is risky so the boss a and the boss a message was you and Bella plant the 12 hectares you buy the vines from pepper Guillaume in north burgundy who had the greatest vineyard nursery in the world they supply the Romney Conti demand LeFleur Bollinger the flood they are the best you take the grapes to Furley estate which was a winery about half an hour from us and he was the UK winemaker of the Year 2012 but this I didn't know when we started and if all goes well we'll we'll buy your wine so off we went the first planting went in in 2009 we hardly find anything in 2010 a little bit in 2011 12 13 was the last planting and the very first vintage from the 2009 planting because they're in the third leaf so the second year but they the vines were but into leaf in the first year so 2011 there were just a few grapes on the vine and I gave myself 17 70th birthday party a big local restaurant just looking over the sea for about 120 people and and Masoud until about half-past five in the afternoon and then I we were going to get we put a couple of marquees up on the vineyard we were going to give a brunch for everyone that we couldn't invite to lunch and people say sir on Sunday morning I was going to judge so I tend to go to church and the church is just up the street from us and my wife was said what the hell are you doing going to church there's far much to do yeah because we I said I've got a lot to thank God for and so I went to church and afterwards saying goodbye to the vicar who died already programmed to say something about the vines he said he said aren't I supposed to build your vineyard in some time soon I said yep two o'clock so had I not been to church he wouldn't have been there and he arrived at two o'clock in his robes everyone was there he put up his hands and he bless the vines as little children of God which of course they were and lo and behold they produce 450 bottles of wine that was great that was our first vintage in 2012 we were rained off but we only had four hectares lighty ember was rained off with almost 100 hectares a 30 we had a tiny vintage 14 we had a really lovely vintage and that's not what you've got in your glass but that was the first vintage we really got going we did the blonde a blonde we did the rosette Bella and then got my wife we did the brute reserve we were really happy and I thought okay we're motoring 15 was so damn cold and this is where we come to for the creme on that we made a tiny amount of Rosie the way we make Rosie is by bringing the Pinot Noir grapes the furrier state and having it macerate them for 36 hours and then press them very very slowly and the juice that runs off is darker than the color of Rosie we need this is what the French called the cine a process song in French is blood Senya is to bleed and so you bleed the colour out of the pinot noir skins and we arrive at a Rosie which is darker than we need so we then blend in 30 or 40 percent of Chardonnay to bring the color down okay and then the rest of grapes came in it was very cold we stopped picking when the sugars with the potential alcohol drop below seven degrees are caught and we shatter eyes up a bit the acidity was 12.5 so we come pre blending to May or June 2016 and in Edwards the winemaker of earlier state said Stephen we can't make a sparkling wine out of this the acidity is to hide the acid the the the our cause too low it we can't do it so I said what do I do just pour it away so no no you wait until 16 and we'll make a blend okay so 16 comes around small vintage better quality we make a blend which is what you've got here and then I was faced with what well first of all I said tasting the blood we'd made it was still ten point five degrees of us of acid and I said here and this is too green this is too green the full sparkling wine of champagne the full sparkling fizz of champagne is going to be too aggressive can you make a crema and crema in its old-fashioned word crema means creamy in french and it has one-third less fizz than champagne and so he said of course I can make a crema and so I requested that he make a crema and then I was faced by the idea of what I would call it and I had no intention of ever putting the words envy on any of my wines because although Envy means non-vintage it's not what I'm about non-vintage in the classic French style champagne style is you have a lot of reserve wines and you blend them in with your current vintage and you make a non vintage I want to make a vintage every year and to send it as the vintage year and I have no intention of keeping reserve wines because I don't want to and in the immortal words of of the winemaker Dom Perignon which are Jeff wah Dom perennials an argument made every year retro crystal is only made when they have a perfect year which means every other year but rich and rich are Jeff what is now three years ago he made the decision to make Dom pérignon every year and I figured that I and I said Richard you're gonna make Dom Prao every year aren't you he said ma chère Steven we have to witness the vintage okay so I my view at bright Valley is we should witness the vintage so I wasn't going to call this non-vintage but I admit on the back label that it is a blend of 15 and 16 and so once getting to selling it my distributor said what's gonna call it I said I'm gonna call it crema of course because that's what it is it was 3.6 bars of fears as opposed to 6 and he said the European rules weren't allowed to do that because it's French word so I contact the European authorities and I said we're allowed to call our wines Brut Brut in this country my wine was brute reserve and that is French Brut the reply came back yes but England England always also uses that for aftershave in the public domain so I then thought well I'll call it cram or anyway and have them take me to court I've got a huge publicity then I can call it cont in the meantime some has said Steven the European rules are that if you have a place of origin you can get an apple a C on a PDO but protected denomination of origin so I applied for Dorset crema which is what you've got and this is not only the first English crema it is only the third English apply C on it it's it's I tell you what it is it's about 65% Chardonnay and 30 30% Pinot Noir 5% Pinot Meunier it's ten point five degrees of acidity it's got a dosage of nine and my wines are normally dosed at eight or even less because I want to preserve the precision of the fruit and I think you'll find there's no getting away from the acidity in this it's Granny Smith acidity I don't recommend anyone drinks more than two glasses at a trot because it's gonna hit your stomach but you do get on the palate it does cream the impression on the palate is not aggressive it creams the first impression of the fears is that it flows which creme well should do and then the acidity kicks in but the fruit is there as well anyway Cheers so what's it like to be on the other side of the table you have worn so many hats on the trade but now to be selling and wearing hats in the trade I remember when I I had the wine shop and then I opened the wine school and so that was went down pretty well with the French with with the French critics and then I opened opened a restaurant and the top French critic Robert 14 didn't approve of English people opening restaurants so he described me in Lemont as Monsieur um put - shut - which means a jack-of-all-trades there we know that jack of all trades master of none well he was right I should never have opened a restaurant but anyway so that's wearing a lot of hats the same time as regards being on this side of the table so to speak in the last chapter in my book is called poacher turned gamekeeper when the once a people George the grand from wah said you came to see me first I said George I just make one wine because I don't want to bother with a blonde oblige I don't have a rosette I just gonna make a single sparkling wine from from this vineyard and he said you're crazy and I said well why what's your argument he said you've never been on the settings side of the table before have you I said no is it okay if you have one wine the only question you can ask is do you like my wine if you have two or three even four wines the question you ask is which of my wines do you prefer very simple so I'd created three wines but it's most interesting being on the other side of the table because all my life I was a trainee but once I had had the shops of my own I was a wine buyer and I only bought wines I liked but then I thought my clients would like them and but to buy the wines I had to go and taste wines all over France and then all over the world and though I was naturally criticizing their wines and people saying mr. Sperry a what you think and so I was telling them what I thought and they kind of get out line in French is pas ma which means not bad pas mal can mean really pretty awful or surprisingly good but pas ma tamil is a get I'd lying but but but or pass email is better than you thought it might be but anyway there was always but an answer ayah I was on the other side of the table and it's most interesting having criticisms of the wines that that carry my name because I have to respond to them you can't just say I'm sorry you're wrong and so you're you're not you're not one of my clients anyways there and it's interesting the style of bright Valley is very precise it's very vertical it's always high and acidity we have a cool climate and I always describe our wines as a pro chief wines they do not go through what the rosette does can go in a desert but it has to be a fruit desert when I got there as warded the decanter Man of the Year award in 2017 decanter threw a lunch for me at the Gavroche restaurant which is the best French restaurant in London and they served Rosabella named after my wife 2014 with the damson fruit tart and damson is the most acidic of all the plum family and that worked wonderfully but this wine is simply not with food this is a completely approaching wine and so that's the precise style that I want and I just have to see that I have to admit an except that a lot of people don't like that very tight style of wine but which I happen to I happen to like anyway there it is you mentioned night timber earlier yeah I just point out that in 2005 at the manger and we had a wonderful harvest in term and sherry sprigs her partner Brad was across the street at domaine serene and they were hired over the phone by the owner to become the winemakers where they've been ever since Oh Jerry yeah those Canadians they could easily move you know to the UK so more Oregon connections so I did want to dive into the the book of it if you go back it is an incredibly honest book you are brutal about the things that happen then you're in your life and the and the end of the honesty at first the title itself it's very specific wine a way of life how did that come to you well wine is the only job I've ever had so and it it has well I mean it it has been a way of life I can't I can't hide and I do not hide in in the book that I have I had a privileged upbringing there was I mean I went to the right schools there was always money around all that kind of stuff so I I came from a privileged background the great advantage I had is that I have an elder brother and he'll be 80 the end of August I'm going to his 80th birthday party in England probably not in now in my my sons and certainly off my grandsons generation but in those days we still had primogeniture which meant that the family estates went to the oldest son and the second son that of course the girls got nothing the girls were supposed to marry a rich husband but but and so I knew from my teens that I was going to be completely free that although my older brother was going to get the estates he also was going to have the responsibility and I knew that I had no responsibility to do anything except get a job and do my own my own thing and I had this Damascene conversion which I've written about in the book in 1954 Christmas Eve dinner at the family estate my grandfather's still alive all in black tie but made was my first Christmas Eve dinner in Long tyres as I just gone to boarding school and it came around to the end of dinner and the port was being served and my grandfather said I think you're old enough for a glass of port so he summoned to the butler the butler bought me a glass that a counter came around the table I poured myself a glass of this this wine it completely knocked my socks off so I said gosh grandpa what's that Coburn's ovate my boy and I can tell you that impression of that wine was so dramatic that and also at the time I collected stamps a lot of my contemporaries did and the the the wine had the connection with Sam speaks it had a country it had a date it had a name it had an image and quite frankly from that moment joined my Geographic and my history lessons at school I searched out what I could learn about wine so I was learning about wine even before I was I was not I was not drinking it and then my parents used to take my brother and I to Europe with them to France in Italy under the socialist government in the 1950s the amount of money you could take out of the country per person was fifty pounds well that worth at least maybe a thousand pounds today but that was it but if you took a child you could take 25 pounds so there was this kind of Reggio child my parents my parents took my older brother and me and they used to stay on the shore sack and we used to send some pasta on somewhere but they did take us to the restaurants with them so in the cafes and brasseries in Paris and then the tractor is in Italy I saw in front of me the conviviality of wine and here with the families drinking talking chatting wine being poured all that kind of stuff so the blend of the intellectuality of wine which I had been learning about from books and the conviviality of wine just made it straight plain to me that that was going to be what I was going to do in my life so I was at the London School of Economics I joined the LSE wine Society I tasted a bit of wine by that time I was in my I was 80 and able to drink wine went to part of wine bars and knew that I was gonna go into my trade so that's what I did you you describe a very casual relationship with school with what with school I think the problem with Rugby School where I was it was very it was very restricting very controlling and that's not in my character and so I passed the exams that was easy because if you work hard you pass exams the rest of the time I tried to be as disruptive as I could so I formed the Rugby School architectural Society and when they realized I could take her bus of people out to Oxford and to see the the the they realized I was like I was controlling something they didn't want control so they shot that done I created the Rugby School Jazz Society they shot that down immediately anyway they they finally finally got out of rugby and I had a place at Cambridge and because I passed all right exams and I told my father I'm not going to Cambridge I'm so fed up with this cap and gown stuff saluting the Masters I'm out of there I'm going to London to grow up and I was a very young that was always a youngest boy in the school size born in October so I left school before before I was 18 and I said daddy I going to London to grow up he said you've got to go to university and I said sure so he booked me into the LSE I the exams are ok and he knew that I was bad at math and this was his getting back at me after having not gone to to Cambridge which is where he wanted me to go and I didn't that ok good didn't need to go to campus besides born in Cambridge so I really knew which university I supported so there was there was no reason for me to go to Cambridge anyway I went I went I went to the LSE and I plod through the exams I failed my first year I did it again I got possibly that was growing up in London was just perfect London in the early 60s was a growing up experience I can tell you but I was glad to get out of school and so then you accept a job with the oldest wine merchant in London Susan we're about 1964 now yeah I love the description I don't know if any of you recognize this from your own wine buying experiences this is we're talking about Christopher's quote clients entered to be received by an elegantly dressed young man at a polished mahogany desk and asked to sit in a comfortable chair to discuss their needs that's not the experience I usually have at a wine store no they didn't do anything so vulgar as having buckles in the window they were in there in German street and they might have had a bottle just sample some dusty bottle of eighteenth-century maderos on that that night and the day this was bespoke bespoke - a bespoke degree and when I went for my interview I was sat down in front the managing director and he said well your school and I said rugby the rugby is one of the top four schools you've got eaten Harrow winstram and rugby and he said oh dear we normally only employ attorney ins anyway they employed me but that was just the atmosphere it was so elitist and I knew that I did a year's work as a trainee as a kind of cellar rat for them and I did learn a lot but then the absolute joy I did nine months abroad in in France and Germany and Spain and Portugal really learning the trade from the vineyards up and that was that was an unbelievable experience unbelievable which they asked you to do at your own expense well yes I there are many advantages to having money the most advanced biggest advantage is complete independence and I was a trainee and I was being sent to these very grand old established companies to be a trainee and I knew that if I went along with the standard thing which is very good I would still learn a lot I would be in the cellars and maybe I wouldn't learn as much as I should so I wrote to all these companies who were employing me and I said I am costing you money you are teaching me about wine therefore my solution is that you don't pay me because it will be my pleasure to learn about wine at my expense with you the result was and I had a couple of my colleagues there and we weren't always working for the same people or about 11 o'clock though so maybe 12 o'clock there was a message mrs. Barry adjourn on come up to the office and I used to attend the tastings watch the glasses afterwards and then ever now then was mrs. pouring why don't you join us for lunch meanwhile my colleagues were working downstairs because paid trainees do not join the bosses for lunch and so I went to chatter Quantic on a and we discussed the 28 in the 29 I went with Jacques Calvo and we talked about Shiva blonde 1947 it was a good trade it cost me two hundred two thousand pounds worth with a huge amount more today it was the best trade I ever did because I was treated as a equal and not as a servant in the book the themes that I really enjoyed it's you know it's people first and foremost it's really a diary of its effect it's a very extensive diary do you keep notes like this no is really just just memory your god Wow okay so it because you the the specificity about what you ate what the wines were that were served the people that were there it's a fantastic diary yeah all on the way of so many of the important people in in the wine trade and I did keep the menus yeah yeah I did keep the menus yeah there we go there and you and you're very generous about the people that you admire I'm Leighton folks of the people that some we might have met through by PNC like a Michael broad meant owners that you know an Alexis Lachine that we would not have met the sort of thing but you're very you're very very generous about the people along the way if there's travel there's a denture there's a lot of trust a lot of misplaced trust you talk about this along the way and there's a tremendous amount of humor and cleverness which is why I'm glad for this format this is a much smaller more casual piece that'll give people a chance to ask questions if you have them along the way I hope you do because that really is such that the thread in the book is that the people you meet in the adventure which I think people when they they know you only a the judgment of Paris or of certain events but they don't when they read the book they see really how wild it is that you would be at a very young age you know moving to France at a time before the EU wasn't wasn't done as much the fact that you don't open a wine shop and a lot of humor around that your first ad I believe that you took out after opening your store it's quite brilliant but I think I've been lucky enough to always been able to not do what I wanted but to do to do something different this never has never posed a problem for me I've made masses of mistakes I mean the book is as I said a rocky ride but I remember when I when my wife and I got engaged in and I think October or November 1967 and I already bought a property in Navarre and the South of France but it had a ruin on it there was no house but it just had a few walls standing and I had commissioned a plan to rebuild the house and to build a very substantial house and I said to my future wife I said and we really had a hisen in London very nice very nice house and I said she said it because we're gonna live in London I said no we're gonna we're going to move to Provence and she said that's the property that I hear you bought yeah I said we're gonna move Provence we're gonna the house will be will be rebuilt and so she said what are you gonna do down there well I said I've left the wine business temporarily I'm gonna go into the antiques business which is my other love is art and antiques and I just going to collect antiques and every single stick of furniture and every single painting in the house would be for sale I would just furnish the house for things I like and hope people will comment by them and she said why not and so for about the first 20 years of our marriage moving to Paris buying a barge instead of moving into an apartment all these sensible things people do her reaction was why not until about 20 or so years ago she stopped saying that I mean women get control eventually but it was I mean I there was never a problem to me to do something I wanted if I thought it was if I thought it was a good idea at the time put it that way and so in 1971 you buy the yeah the shop yeah it's here it's also on the cover of your eye pain free booklet you're not gonna be poured out the Dorsett Pinot Noir so you please finish your your glass yeah so you you buy the shop in 1971 yeah and you this is really quite a revolutionary event and the wine business was different than in terms of the trade and retail and such like that maybe you would want to set the scene for buying the shop and your entry in the into the Paris wine trade yeah well I mean I I was walking I was trying to figure out what I was gonna do in Paris because the the rebuilding the rebuilding of the huge house that I designed had designed for me didn't happen I had a crooked architect and you know you're young you got tons of money it's just you're ripped off entirely we did build the swing pool died pasted I'd I didn't I didn't measure that I just pasted out what I thought be a nice sized pool it turned out to be 18 meters by 10 we surrounded it by Carrara marble and it was a really lovely sample and I hadn't figured out where we're gonna get the water from anyway we we dug down very deeply and got our own water supply with that cost bit of money except and we built it anyway it didn't work out so my wife says what am I gonna do now I said right we're gonna move to Paris and I'll go back into the wine trade so we moved to Paris and but there's no wine trade in the classic English wine trade terms there's just a lot of shops every corner had an in Nicholas shop lot of little wine shops it's a completely corrupt wholesale business and no wine trade so walking up a little Muse Street a little passageway near the Madeleine with a friend of mine we passed a wine shop and I said Christopher that's my dream a little shop like that I know exactly what I could do with it and so he grabs me we were going up to lunch at the restaurant which I subsequently bought and he grabs me in and I look around the walls and the the the wines are pretty boring but okay and the Madame lady behind the counter says may I sell you something and my friend Christopher says my friend would like to buy your shop and she says it's for sale so every now and then you have a bit of luck like that so we meet we do the deal we get the price and then she has second thoughts and because her husband had been a very good coffee's a very good wine merchant and he died of cancer two years previously and she just felt that a young Englishman who didn't speak good French and there was no evidence for her that I knew anything about wine would not be able to carry on the reputation of her husband so once again using money as an advantage tool I said okay Madame fujur here's the deal we were October the 1st I said I'll work for you for six months for nothing and if you think after six months I'm able to take over I can honor your husband's reputation we'll do the deal if not I walk away of course that was fantastic during their six months I learned much better French I got to know exactly what I wanted to do with the place I worked like a slave if I can tell you in those days I was a livre I delivered all the cases of wine and it was 15 bottles of liters 15 liters of our dinner and 10 liters of water in a single case that probably 25 kilos if not 30 kilos which I had to take up in my arms up the servants staircase because in those days in Paris delivery boys were not allowed to use the lift and then you go in and then you change them all for empty bottles like I said but that there's six months I got to know exactly what I was gonna do in the shop and I was allowed to take it over on the 1st of April April Fool's Day 1971 I placed an adverse mint in The Herald Tribune which just read your wine merchant speaks English call Steven Spurrier and those days Paris was very much an international City it's circle international now but it was an international financial city and all the American banks were there all the American law firms are there and they were all around the Madelon it was a piece of cake and so I got this anglo-saxon principally American clientele and about two days after I bought the shop because we used a bottle or a wine tank at little tanker truck used to appear and pump vowed an air into the VATS above the shop and we bottled it by hand and so the representant from the supplier came and said mr. Sperry I'm very pleased that you bought banner through a shop I hope we're going to continue and said no we're not I said the the taxi game were going tomorrow and he looked a little bit dark as he said you're gonna lose half your clientele I said that's a half I want to lose and because what I want to do is supplying van around in there the people who who I mean you know not my clientele so bit by bit and I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do and there were two or three other good wiremock top wine merchants in Paris there was mr. Legrand there was mr. Burson Monsieur show day and mr. Legrand was on my side of town on the right bank not on the right bank and so I got to know him and we did subsequently some very interesting things together but I wasn't fazed at all I knew I could get a new clientele and I knew I did not want to sell Vowell dinner so that was that was it yeah that was it yeah and then in 1973 you start Academy devour yeah well then the I used to give I just give tastings in the evenings my American clientele English dontel and a few French people used to come by and say what used to come by and bottle of a couple of bottles of wine but they said what's what's new and I always had something that I'd open and so I showed them the wine with a little bit of information and one of them said you know Stephen if you could put this into a structured fashion we'd love to do a wine course we'd love to learn about wine and I'd met a great friend called John Wayne Roth who was the wine writer for The Herald Tribune and he was giving wine courses in the backs of cafes to junior year abroad students coming in for America and I said John look if I can get the place next door which I knew was coming out for sale a we could open a wine school and you do that you do the teaching and so all the wines come from the shop so we set that as an idea the place came up I managed to buy it for a very low price at auction and I was going to call it lumber sergeeva because to me I was I was a wind communicator and so the wine embassy was what I was I was an ambassador for wine the name Lamba said you've had been taken by someone else so the next one Don was like add whatever the wine school and an Academy in in England and probably in America is a school you go to an academy in France is a high level it's a high level something that you aspire to sell Academy the France says you have to be 90 before you're allowed through the doors and so the name that caddy would find no one had taken it because they had never allied the name Academy in his friend sense to wine because wine was a very popular drink so I got the name like Adam and Eve on wine school and we opened in 1973 and it was we were the only game in town and so this was why or ha why I was able to do the judgment the tasting which became known as the judgment of Paris because the vintners from California and American journalists used to come to black carbon if I will California wines and just I said I'd like you to taste these wines maybe you've been answered we were not we were knocked out by them the quality of the Chardonnay is the quality of the Cabernets and so I said to my partner at the time Patricia Gallagher who is American I said we got to do something about this we because we'd always we were giving tastings we really were the only game in time we were giving tastings of anything we wanted to think about Spanish wine Chilean wine all that kind of stuff and I said Patricia we've got to get recognition for these wines and so she took her September holidays when California checked out some wineries came back saying absolutely we must do it and so we did it so you are to reiterate what you said earlier today that that you were not in the sad broken position that the movie portrayed the movie bottle shock I think for those of you who were in the seminar earlier today might have detected a note of peak that about the portrayal and frankly the absolute lack of respect and consulting you and and the fact that because something we we had the pleasure of seeing each other about a month ago and the idea that that someone would make your life story without you is hmm outrageous enough but and then get all a bit wrong and the portrayal in the movie is so far different than what was happening in your life at the time yeah yeah yeah and and the Indies you said you know the the fact that you were successful you look at the who at the roster of hmm judges very impressive well we were we were the most we were incredibly well-respected because we had never asked for money from anybody we were holding events what people use we used to charge for them but we were we were in a way revolutionized the paracin wine trade and in the way that meets your gaba and la nouvelle cuisine revolutionised French cuisine in the 1970s and so when I said to Patricia to draw attention to the quality coming out of California we have to have them tasted by the best judges in France and so we ticked off the view boxes over de Valera from the romanée-conti Piatt area who are in charge of disco raiment Oliver the great chef from the ground floor John called Rina from the restaurant Tyler Vaughan Christian vannacutt they had sommelier at that toward our jaw and so on and so forth thank you so we got these nine people signed up that calm the owner of the reviewed Van de France P Abreu the head of the Institute is a place in control day they signed up because they knew we wouldn't have asked them if it wasn't worth their while signing up so I went to California to make the final selection which wasn't easy it wasn't as easy as I thought I went to see Joe Heights at Heights and he was not he didn't want to see me he said why you why do you want to come I don't sell to France and I did I said because I said I'm innocent in tasting your wines and he was little not terribly welcoming and so he said well since you're here you better taste the white in a red so it I taste this Chardonnay and I said mr. Heights this reminds me of a Mercer charm and he said Mercer is my wife's favorite wine from that moment we got on fire then I rang Ridge and I was staying up in north of North of San Francisco at the time and ridges down in and I rang Ridge and I gave him the spirit I said I want to come and taste your wine we said what I put in a tasting impasse we don't receive visitors and we certainly don't want our wine tasted by the French and don't bother come so I turned up anyway and got out of my car and there was Dave Banyan who was Paul Draper's colleague he said you're the guys I told not to come I said that's right so we taste the wine and we got on fine so anyway that but it wasn't as simple as you might think so anyway we get the wines the wines that this is but the only true thing in the movie the wines are hand carried over by a group there was a wine and tennis tour organised by Diane Dickinson and Andre Church F was on the tour it was a wine and tennis tour and there were 23 of them and they carried twenty four bottles of wine with them and one broke so that was easy 23 bottles 23 people and if they hadn't done that I would not have gotten the wines into France because there was no input allocation for California wine and so about a fortnight before the tasting was due to happen everything was lined up I said to Patricia I'm worried we got the best judges we got the best wines but the judges with one exception over to villain who is married to a girl from California from San Francisco only over would have ever tasted California wine before the rest of the judges will know that California is on the west coast somewhere north of Mexico and they will think it's a hot country totally right and they will then put in their heads Spain or south of Italy and they will not give the wines the respect they deserve I said I had turned into a blind tasting with the best from Burgundy and the best from border from my shop but you said well that's not whether not what they've been asked to do I said don't worry on the day I'll fix it I choose muchas gracias 70 Aubry on 71 no beyond 70 Morris 71 and level Oscar 71 and the the white burgundy is a premium ownership premier Cooper Mercer Premier Cru Burke lady moosh and bottom are a fine the judges turn up and I say you would come to taste California wine and I think it could be more interesting perhaps to taste them blind against the best from Burgundy and the best border but I have to have your agreement because this is not what you're here for and if they said no I could have done it they said partner problem the rest is history so that's that's what happened and it was the judgment of Paris the the white wines it was very simple Chateau Montelena got six votes to be top wine shallow and which I'd personally thought would come top got three so not a single French judge put a white burgundy in the top it in the top place I announced the results of the whites while the Reds are being prepared that was sort of a mistake that was a little bit shocking to everybody but what it did do it put firmly into their minds they were not going to have that happen again with the Reds and so when they realized by tasting that a wine was from California they slammed it we were marking out of 20th some ties got three and four they really took it apart however the ranking Stag's Leap snuck in by half a point and Odette Khan the owner of the real vanna France knew exactly what would happen she stood up and she might demanded her notes back and she had voted for both the Montelena and the stag seat and I said madam can you agreed to take part in this then along your notes there notes she then wrote an article in her magazine saying it had been faked and all this kind of stuff anyway but that was a just no pass so since I that's this is the judgement of Dorset this is this is a this is a Pinot Noir I always told myself that if ever my vineyard could produce a stew produced a vintage from which I can make a still wine I would do it and the potential sugars last year vintage were 11.5 on the first day of the vintage we picked this Pinot Noir at eleven point five we shap ties it up to twelve point five it's still in tank we bought a single American barrel at ten percent is going to bow but this is Dorsett Pinot Noir the Dijon clones so you know what about Pina no I don't have to tell you how to taste this wine what I do want though is your opinion of it [Music] good come on mama brother it's like it's gonna spend this as a tank sample it's gonna be bottled in December another 10% we're going to work it is life but it is very pure Pinot Noir and I'm so quite happy with it III think it's and it's the vines are five years old so it's there's the I think we got a very good vintage on the vines for a prolific vintage on the vines as the vines get older the quality of the juice is gets much more much more complex much more much more texture and so I feel that obviously in poor vintages we can't do it but if we can get the sugars up to ten or ten point 10.5 continue to make still wine because we can chapter lies up to 12 but I'm really happy the way that stand out and I'm very happy to present it to you today because it's something you won't ever have tasted before in your lives absolutely so quite a few wineries in France and other parts of Europe I was astounded how almost every winemaker said they couldn't they couldn't get wines from other reasons of France where they live and therefore knew about the the other French regions didn't know much about didn't know many of the winemakers there sometimes my wife will enjoy technical manners like that would tell them what somebody was doing in another part of France and they say really does that's amazing that's that's entirely that's entirely chance the the younger the younger generation it changed about 20 years ago if not more and I think the judgment of Paris was very instrumental in that but you know telling you what you and your wife saw in the 1970s the burgundians didn't even taste wines from the next village and so in in Bordeaux they drank Bordeaux in Berga their rank burgundy and both they did the Frank birthday and so on and so forth it was it was quite extraordinary there was very little a peony gadget tip as you were this morning tippers father said until about 15 years ago we thought Bordeaux as a color a wonderful wonderful comment I had a very great friend called Martin Bamford who used to run an English initiative in America shadaloo den and Martin was a great border purist and but total meadow and he he appreciated the wines from the right bank so she oblong petrol sphere shutter set all that that was okay and so I came back I was staying at loo then I came back after a day on the right bank and I bent a few shatter set on and she oblong and said and I came back raving about the right bank wines basically mellow okay as opposed to Cabernet Sauvignon and I said Martin the write-back wines are really fantastic he said if you think so I said well yes they're supposed to appeal to the emotion and the Murdochs appeal to the head he said that's correct and I said rather like Burgundy appeals the emotion he said yes you don't have to be very bright to like Bergen I did want to point out that the pinot noir was hand carried by Steven here there are a couple other topics I want to get into but I want to see if there are other questions at the moment we want to make sure everyone has yes please well I mean I think Chile certainly Argentina South Africa Australia of course it's a much easier question is to to find the other parts of the world which are not producing wines which at the top of the heap and in that bracket I'd put Thailand China Vietnam it's if vineyards vineyards are kept of being plants in and that's it the soil and the climate is capable of planting noble grape varieties and they're people capable of allowing the grapes to express themselves without exaggerating it the wines will be very good simple as that so I think I think they did the the the the the range of worldwide wines it's quite extraordinary I mean it's it's I mean no one but few people except the mass producers are making bad wine now because they know there's no market for it they're all competing with each other the first growths and the extra super the sort of screaming egos all that kind of stuff bill Harlan they're in a world of their own but every other wine has to compete for the for your buck and therefore they have to be as good as they can possibly be it's a golden age and really as a golden age for wine drinkers it's interesting that that the judgment at paris format has been used many many many times since what the judgment parents did the most important thing is I mean it would put California on the map it actually the other important thing it did the young we're talking about the young generation the younger generation went to California to see what the hell was going on and they saw there was a lot of money going into the wineries there was no money going into investment in France because the vineyards weren't making money I remember I used to spend the vintages at layer the bottom and longer apart on is the lovely shutter and Ronald Barton told me during the seventh aventures she said Stephen this is such a good vintage and the quantity I think with this vintage we can repair the roof of the Chateau and it's not as though they were having buckets catching the drips but you know it needed repair and so I start again in the 71 vintage and much the same thing less concentration but nice volume and I said well Ronald what about this he said with this vintage I can repair the roof on the cellar there was no money to invest if you don't invest you can't make good wine and so what people saw in California was massive investment going in and really seat-of-the-pants trying to do the best possible thing and it's no coincidence that the first vintage of Opus one was 1979 and Baron Philippe de Rothschild would not have considered going in with Robert Mondavi until the judgment of Paris showed him what was going on there but the most important thing in judgment Paris did it created a template where by unknown wines could go up against unknown wiser quality could go up against known wines of quality to be judged blind by judges and if the judges were of cords the opinion of judges would be respected so it completely opened the playing field another question come I came to look Burgundy's in the 80s and I loved the fact where they were still an old style sort of little unpredictable and maybe a little breath whatever quite original and it seemed to me you were talking about younger winemakers that in many of these same vineyards wineries sort of cleaned up and improved their winemaking technique in the 90s and I didn't like the lines as well and some of it seemed that some of them never came around but I don't know if you do you think there's any fairness in that I think in the 90s they were using a bit too much Newark and that tightens Pinot Noir up a lot and they were they were playing around they would they would they were trying to get something which might not have been there as overdeveloped I said this morning oh but Evelyn the Romney Conte asked hard the Romney County makes such marvelous wine she said we picked the great - and that ripened do nothing and burgundy has become so natural now there's much less racking in the in the in the cellar there's less new wood it didn't really kind natural so you have you you had a question put it stresses like how the price version I just want to hear is that your opinion is like is it sustainable just well I mean I think the wine business is 90 and 95% supply and demand okay burgundy is on a complete roll the first reason for that is the quality of Burgundy has never been higher the second reason is that the demand for Burgundy has never been larger and so if you take the worldwide demand for Burgundy the wines like the the Grand Cru like museu and champa town even the Premier Cru like Jerry's yamazaki-san Jack the Premier Cru are getting prices that the world market will pay and that is just a fact of life however there are a lot of Burgundy's being produced which are not world market potential so the cochon is this morning but I mean just Villa what we call vintage wines von De Palma shamash a bone those wines are still affordable because they don't carry the unique USP whereas cooley Marche Premier Cru lay Purcell is just below the Marche that is a very high price probably a hundred pounds bottle but a village premium are Asha is probably 35 pounds bottle so it's there's a price for everybody the price is once a market gets bit up it's the cost of the ones are substantially higher than they were before and therefore potentially not good value but that is purely in the eyes of the person paying for it but there is very good value still in Burgundy because the wines are so much better than they were tasting the past - what tasting the past it's the cup of Forgotten grape varietals around the world specifically the Middle East in two places we would not necessarily think of as quite producing reasons a lot of the places apparently those have been plowed under neglected forgotten aside present in a lot of places all these restorations I'm just wondering if you're seeing you know new grape varieties different places things that are really kind of coming up that are really different and very surprising because that book maybe realise that you know there's literally thousands based upon DNA there's thousands of different traits out there and that some of them are now relegated to you know twenty acres in some obscure place and some of them are getting replanted in finding you know new customers and all that but I'm just wondering if you could be tracking that if there's any new four aisles that are intriguing and interesting to you I think that's one of the most exciting things of the wine trade today and it's particularly so in Italy which has the largest vineyard bank of any country in the world and you go to friuli-venezia giulia that these vines grape varieties which have just been saved there were maybe two rows in somebody's garden and they had now been propagated and they're 200 rows and and to me and I wish I was 50 years younger because that's what I will begin drinking now and I do taste them in my going around on the wine tasting circuit it is in my view the most fascinating thing that's going on in the world of wine it's the rediscovery there are a few grape varieties being invented but they're the hybrid blends so the marsala marsala Anne Francis is very successful I can't remember what it is but it's the reinvention of old almost forgotten grape varieties which is fantastic Torres in Spain is doing it on on so high slopes and he calls his selections forgotten grapes because they had been totally forgotten about and I think that's what mercy sunny because they are at least what you know about Dorset Pinot Noirs is Pinot Noir but in the cases you're talking about it's a wine that no one has ever even heard about you would never tasted therefore you're tasting something entirely new and I think that's absolutely fascinating you're tasting in 1976 especially the ones who were a year of at the same time we add the tasting and the lack of press coverage other than George Taber so well I mean the non-attendance the tasting was done for the nine judges that we invited we did invite the French press LeMond la Figaro Francois said they was just not interested because they thought tastes Californian wines no interest at all George Taber was doing a wine course at like ad revoir he was the head of Time magazine in Paris and the bureau he said if I have a slow day in the office I'll turn up he turned out my wife was there to take the photographs if better hadn't been there to take the photographs and George hasn't been there to be there no one would have talked about it but that is just the way things happen but it was there was that it was it wouldn't have occurred to me to invite an American taster because I wanted the wines to be judged by the best palates in France the best French palates well I woke up here first number so you had tasted you knew French wine as well it tasted American wines Oh honestly impressed American wines and the accounts that I have read said that you're indicating you were very surprised by the results going into the tasting did you really think that they would be far apart or did you think the baby had what was your expectation going in and how shocked were you my hope would was that the California wines would get say a certain a fifth certain if if I died there's no winning was just not in my in my conception and not actually in my interest that California would win against French wines in the country where I lived in worked no I I put in the I put in the white bergna's and the red borders as benchmarks that the California wine should be judged against just to see how they must have but there's one interesting point is if that tasting were redone today or had been redone in the last twenty years but it was redone actually in London thirty years on and simultaneously in Napa and in London with the same red wines but the taste has only had one wine one glass so they they tasted wine one made their notes glass taken away glass comes back wine - there was no comparison and one can't tell how it might have worked out had there been a comparison because generally in a wine tasting the first one you taste gets quite a good mark because it's the first one of the day then you go back or I thought I'd like number one of course I did like number one that does that but but that's the only it was just the way it was done at the time the way we did it in London and and simultaneously and Napa in 2006 was open the wines were blind but you had all the ten wines in front of you I says yeah we're climate change how about the regions change with respect to is on my side well I think it's what was so different those days is that California was just trying so hard the yields were low they couldn't sell the wines anyway I think that wasn't a huge market there was there was no demand so they really were seat-of-the-pants making the best wine they could and okay in 2006 we redid it 30 years on and California took the first five places and rich came tall Mouton Rothschild has always been the top French wine we then did an open tasting of much the same wines and I refused to go into the blind tasting system again we did an open tasting with much the same wines of the 2000 vintage and France wipe the floor with California there's the conclusion being which it's absolutely true that in the early 70s French France was resting on its laurels and in mm so was California and France it fought back over dividend commented on the tasting a few years afterwards and he said a much-needed kick in the pants for French wine the coup de lotería that's it yeah and I said that I got the privilege of listening to see this for what a boss respected in the world and I said it's motifs noted for the judgment of Paris which I think for Americans is patently true through your body this is a great question because I always answer is saying I'm most proud of like a bit of an I haven't created like a debate van which was a wine school as I said I wanted it to be called Lombardi vomit I felt myself to be a brand ambassador I know a wine ambassador not a wine teacher but it was indeed a wine school and to create a wine school in Paris we should never been done before that was certainly the thing I'm most proud of which brings me to the thing I'm the thing I miss secondly most proud of which you mean I have to republish my memoirs with another chapter the last chapter being poacher turned gamekeeper is the creation of La Canada man library and this is a publication venture which I've gone into with four or five colleagues one of them is Hugh Johnson and I was disappointed by the sales of my book and by the time we'd hit we printed 4,000 copies by the time we'd hit 2,000 copies after six months I realized I'd personally sold and signed over a thousand so my conclusion was that book stores didn't sell wine books and we were on Amazon so Amazon might have said something but book stores did not sell wine books and after I thought about that and I had lunch with you Johnson and I said you you know all the wine books coming out now they're all reference books and basically what is published either in print or on the web that say the wine advocate about tasting notes and ranking and scores it's all about money it's oh there's nothing about history there's nothing about people there's nothing about what we were brought up with and why can't we bring some of these wonderful books back and he said that's a brilliant idea so he then mentioned a couple of friends we knew and they got instant in the idea so we found in that Caravan library with the intention of never selling to book shows and never selling to Amazon and the first book we published is republish was the commemorative edition of micro broadband my testing which is where it all started there could have been no academy of art without micro broadband spine testing that could have been no chris's wine cause there was micro broadband in 1968 sat down and wrote his book called wine tasting which we reprinted here without changing a single comma he wrote it in three months just because he wanted to tell people how and why you should taste wine what we've added we've updated vintages we've added tasting terms in Spanish and Portuguese and Russian and Chinese and Japanese we haven't changed a single word because nothing has changed in what Michael wrote it is all absolutely true what we have added is personal comments on Michael by Jancis Robinson Hugh Johnson and Paul Barker and myself and Jared Bassett who last thing he ever wrote before he died and at the back we've added about 30 pages on Michael as a Renaissance man which he was he played constant standard pianist he was a great artist he was also a great lover of women as his son Bartholomew says in the interview apart from wine my father's great love was women he always told about me about that in great detail he could have taught cousin over a thing or two you know this is these asides of Michael that the public doesn't know about and those of you who might you might have heard of the name but but this is the first book we published the second book we published was Fiona Morrison's ten great wine families that both we're publishing a book on shadow Musa the iconic Lebanese winery and says Asha was the countess first man of the Gardeners thirty-five forty years ago we're publishing a book on sherry The Forgotten wine by Ben Hawkins we're recreating something which none of you would have known called the complete in Biber and that was a wonderful miscellany of wine writing going back to plenty or horrors and everything we're creating that this year under the title in vino veritas and that will be an annual art in time for Christmas we're going to create first with Musa a series of iconic wineries we got Torres will be the new loosen his here today Edoardo Chadwick we got lots of plans we're going to publish five or six books a year the financing is there and it's going to be a locker in our library and to buy the books you have to come direct to us and you can belong to the cattle drive club and for people who in three years time people who find out about the caravan library there will be 15 or 16 or 18 books available all still in print which we don't intend our books to go out of print also available and we will single handle they recreate wine publishing in the world look at these two books and you'll see the quality of what we're doing but I'm really thrilled about that because it's it's something as as they said my life in wine has been a rocky road and the chairman of this said Steven just keep on having ideas stay away from the numbers every time I got myself involved in anything involving money it's gone downhill so I'm really thrilled with this so I think it's it's um anyway that's that's what we have we have a lot of halfway we will do a book on Opus one do yes is there a last question well in that case I think we all joined in saying thank you very much for today and being here for the weekend and we can follow you out and to the right and if people wanna have their book signed sure well add to the thousand and away we go but thank you so much thank you very much so much thank you very much for coming you

Channel: Linfield Archives

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Length: 79min 35sec (4775 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 01 2019