▻ Farewell to Steven
I remember an Italian producer once saying to me, “You know when people are considered truly great in the wine industry when they are referred to only by their first name: Bob (Mondavi) Angelo (Gaja) Michael (Broadbent) Hugh (Johnson) and Steven.” Steven was Steven Spurrier, the man who through “The Judgement of Paris” tasting put California wine on an equal footing on the wine world map. He was also a close friend and colleague who I worked with for over a quarter of a century, when I ran Decanter and appointed him as our Consultant Editor.
▴ Steven Spurrier and Sarah Kemp, photo by Cath Lowe/Decanter
““Steven was always open to discovering new wines, and judging them on their quality alone, he was a quality purist””
Steven died early in the morning on 9th March and the outpouring of sadness across the internet from around the world has been unprecedented, and I doubt we will see a similar level again, for Steven was not only one of the most respected people in the international wine world, he was also the most liked.
Steven grew up in Derbyshire at the family home Marston Hall, with his beloved older brother Nicky. He was sent to Rugby School, which in his autobiography “A Life in Wine,” he described as “stultifyingly boring” (Interestingly, it was also the school where Hugh Johnson, Ben Howkins and Richard Neill went). Steven arrived in London in the swinging ‘Sixties, turning down a place at Cambridge for the London School of Economics. He said, “I couldn’t take any more of the ‘cap and gown’ atmosphere of expensive private education, saluting the masters when you passed them in the streets and respecting the hierarchy of previous centuries.” A foreshadowing of things to come?
‘Sixties London life suited the gregarious Spurrier well, a merry round of cocktail parties, the occasional ball, time off to visit museums and art galleries and a succession of high-jinks, which once ended him up in Chelsea Gaol for drunk and disorderly conduct. Despite this, Steven still managed to achieve a second B. SC (Econ).
In British society, it used to be said that the oldest son inherited the estate, the second went into the Army, the third into the Church and the fourth went into some sort of commerce, the wine trade being very suitable, as wine was considered a gentleman’s profession. In February 1964, Steven arrived as a trainee at Christopher’s & Co. in Jermyn Street and was sent on an eight-month tour of the wine regions of Europe to work for their suppliers, the start of a lifetime of travelling the vineyards of the world.
It was while he was at Christopher’s that two things happened which were to change his life; meeting Bella, who was to become his wife, and receiving a cheque (in today’s money, £5 million) for his shares in Hilton Gravel Ltd, the company which his grandfather had founded in 1922 to support his country pursuits.
““I was living a busy and interesting life in London and was very happy with it. The Hilton Gravel cheque represented over 200 times a yearly income and I simply had no clue what it really meant.””
Steven’s financial freedom and generous and optimistic nature led to not always the best business decisions; however, it did set him off on a wine adventure few could dream of. After a spell in the south of France, he arrived in Paris with Bella and bought a barge which was installed on the Right Bank of the Seine near the Pont de la Concorde. It was to be a magical decade for Steven and Bella, and their two young children Christian and Kate, and where he opened his wine shop Caves de la Madeleine. Ever the promoter, he put an advertisement in the Herald Tribune, saying, “Your wine merchant speaks English.” Even then, Steven was the most enthusiastic wine communicator, and it was almost inevitable that he would set up a wine school, the Academie du Vin, his proudest professional achievement. He was thrilled when a few years ago he was able to use the name to launch the Academie du Vin Library with Simon McMurtrie, perpetuating his commitment to spreading the knowledge and pleasures of wine.
The tasting that came to be known as “The Judgement of Paris” remains today a pivotal moment in modern wine history. It was Patricia Gallagher, who worked with Steven, who had the idea to evaluate a range of Chardonnays and Cabernet Sauvignons from California against top Burgundies and Bordeaux by some of France’s finest palates. The results of the tasting are well known, California came top, but it was the fact that it was witnessed by journalist George Taber, who wrote a piece for Time magazine entitled “The Judgement of Paris” that caused the stir, world-wide publicity, and established the idea that great fine wine could be made outside France. It didn’t exactly make Steven popular in France; Bella quipped at the time “Bang goes his Legion d’Honneur” (he never did receive it). However, many French producers now concede that it gave the French wine industry the overdue kick up the backside it needed.
Steven’s fortunes changed on returning to Britain in the early 80s, a move planned due to the children’s education. While the wine school and the shop were doing well, Steven’s expansion into the U.S. was a disaster, and he returned to London broke and deeply in debt. He took a job as Harrods wine consultant, a short-lived appointment, as the proprietor Mohamed Al-Fayed was furious that Steven’s appointment was gaining more attention than the wine shop. It was shortly after he had been fired that I bumped into him at the Wine and Spirit Benevolent Ball and he regaled me with the story of his short tenure. I immediately said, “That’s great news, you can come and work with us,” and so Steven became Decanter’s consultant editor and monthly star columnist for the magazine. It was the best decision I ever made for Decanter in my 32 years there.
Steven helped me shape Decanter, and our partnership was an enormously happy one. He was, apart from being a brilliant taster and commentator, an indefatigable ambassador for the title. I remember a trip we took to Argentina. While I and my colleague suffered from jet lag for two days, Steven had stepped off the plane, gone straight to a major wine dinner, commented on the wines, slept quite well, and walked around exploring the city the next day. His energy and positivity were extraordinary, and he was also rarely ruffled. On the same trip, we had been taken by private plane to the pampas for a wine tasting. After the tasting, a convivial lunch was served, with great bottles being pulled out in Steven’s honour. When we returned to the plane, I noticed our host, who had been partaking liberally, take the controls from the pilot, having decided to fly the plane himself. Alarmed, I looked at Steven in horror and said “Steven, Steven, he’s flying our plane!” Steven replied, “Don’t worry Sarah, he’s flying on Malbec,” and returned to reading The New York Times.
Wherever we went in the world Steven was greeted with unrivalled admiration and respect. It was universally acknowledged, even by Robert Parker, that Steven was a superb taster with an ability to assess a wine with pinpoint accuracy. When we founded the Decanter World Wine Awards in 2004 it was incredibly easy to attract the top wine tasters from all over the globe--everyone wanted to judge under Steven. As Chairman, he was called in to arbitrate if there was a disagreement, and the cry, “Find Steven” was heard often. I sometimes thought they just wanted to benchmark their opinion to his. While he was, without doubt, a brilliant taster, his influence came from the considered manner in which he approached both wine and tasters, who were in their own fields highly regarded. He would swirl the glass and often cocking an eye say “Well, I’m finding …” You could hear a pin drop as they took in every word Steven had to say.
Steven possessed the rare ability to talk and write with erudition, but still making it accessible to the larger public. His notes were never long, nor of the fruit-salad tasting note school, structure and balance playing a larger part in his assessment. The fact that he was steeped in the classics, (he was Decanter’s lead Bordeaux reviewer) gave him a unique perspective. Steven was always open to discovering new wines, and judging them on their quality alone, he was a quality purist. One of his last trips was to Uruguay, which he adored, and was keen to return to. Even in his late 70s, he was up for exploring new regions. Wherever he roamed, he always returned back to his family in Dorset and I, who spent so much time with him over the years in airports, hotels and wine events, know during our wide-ranging discussions his family remained foremost in his mind. Wherever we were he talked with pride of Bella, who he had met all those years ago at an ice rink in Queensway, and of his children and grandchildren.
For Steven wine was a way of life, it was part of civilised discourse, and with his open and generous personality, he inspired a legion of wine lovers, both in and outside the trade. Wine was for sharing, discussing, enjoying, drinking – for bringing people together, which is what Steven did best. I can think of no one in the wine world who will be more missed, I hope wherever you are you will raise a glass to the true gentleman of wine.
Sarah Kemp
▴ Warren Winiarski, Steven, Brian St. Pierre at Bride Valley Vineyard.
Brian St. Pierre on Steven
On the morning of May 31, 1976, I began my day with a barrage of incoming, urgent phone calls I wasn’t at all prepared for. I was in the public-relations department of the Wine Institute in San Francisco, and our switchboard operator had begun receiving the calls as soon as we opened, from people in New York wanting the phone numbers of a few wineries in the Napa Valley. Being New Yorkers, they were impatient; it was something about a magazine, which made it my responsibility. The calls were non-stop. A little later, someone a copy of Time magazine arrived in my inbox, opened to a page with a short article about a wine-tasting that had taken place in Paris in which California wines had been chosen over similar French ones. This explained the phone calls, which were mostly from retailers in New York whose stock of California wine usually consisted of large bottles of Gallo Hearty Burgundy or Paul Masson Burgundy or Chablis in reusable carafes; they wanted to know how they could get some of the winning wines. We all know how that story ended, but that morning, it merely seemed to be an odd bump in the road, another strange turn in the zigzag story of wine in America.
By the end of what turned out to be an intense slog of a day, I’d begun to change my mind. The calls had also come in from Chicago, Boston, and a dozen other cities in the eastern half of the United States. I’d spoked to Warren Winiarski of Stag’s Leap and Jim Barrett of Chateau Montelena and discovered they’d been getting the same sort of calls. At an early hour the next morning, I called Steven Spurrier in Paris, who was astonished when I told him of the furore. He said he had written notes, impressions, scores, background materials, and could send them to me to round out the story, and I asked him if he had a fax machine. His reply was classic Spurrier:
““I don’t have a thermofax machine, but there’s a chap nearby who does, and I’m sure he’d let me use it. I’ll send you some interesting stuff.””
He wasn’t kidding. But among the numbers, data, and background, one thing immediately stood out: The tasters who had rendered such conclusively good results for California wine were French and highly qualified, at the top of their profession. The tasting was held in France, hosted by an Englishman. This wasn’t a marketing stunt; as a well-known politician later liked to say, there was no collusion. I wrote a press release on the affair and sent it to newspapers and magazines around the country, spreading the news, putting it in context and bragging a bit. Then I made the call that mattered, to Frank Prial, wine columnist at The New York Times.
Frank was a tough, hard-nosed metro reporter who’d come up through the ranks covering crime, fires, political scandals, and whatever other disasters came up on any given day. He also loved wine, and he’d begun a column on it a few years earlier that combined appreciation with real reportage. He was a hard sell, and his first response was to laugh. “You guys out in California have turned wine-tasting into the leading indoor sport in America,” he said. “Who cares?” After a while, after I’d mentioned the number and names of retailers who’d called me and the wineries, the demolition of some old cliches about the relative merits of various wines, the possibility that this sudden massive surge was a game-hanger, he said he’d think about it.
A week later, Prial wrote the first of two columns about the tasting, which caused a huge stir, and of course, led to more calls from more retailers. Besides that, The New York Times back then syndicated articles and columns, and more than 200 newspapers nationwide picked up the story. California was winning friends around the country, which was remarkable in itself, but the best news was that it had finally and firmly planted its flag in New York, where French restaurants and wines reigned for so long; it was a real turning point, the coup de grace.
I talked with Steven almost every day those first few tumultuous weeks—he was now getting frequent phone calls as well. He was astounded that this story was such big news, and comically astonished to hear from me what to any European was a bizarre litany of repressive and often strange laws in the U.S. (it was specifically illegal, for example, to give a dog a drink of wine in one state). The United States had been the only major country in the world prohibiting the “manufacture and sale” of alcoholic beverages (with the brief exception of Canada); the legacy of Prohibition was the Mafia, high taxes, and 50 sets of different laws, one for each state. Ironically, some of the worst repression was in the most sophisticated parts of the country: In Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, for example, you couldn’t buy a bottle of wine in a grocery store or on a Sunday; home delivery of wine was forbidden in many places, as was the interstate shipment of wine by or to individuals; sales of wine by the glass in restaurants was forbidden, as was having a wine-tasting in a food store, openly carrying a bottle of wine in public, even if it were unopened; advertising was repressed, often banned.
Explaining all this to an incredulous wine merchant in Paris was sometimes awkward: America was “the land of the free,” but not quite for wine lovers—I had to remind him that America had been settled by Puritans, after all. (One survey I’d seen stated that Americans’ most frequent mealtime beverages were water and coffee.) I often quoted H.G. Wells, author of “The Time Machine” and other classic novels, who wrote, just after the turn of the century:
““You Americans have the loveliest wine in the world you know, but you don’t realize it. You call them ‘domestic,’ and that’s enough to start trouble anywhere.””
That was the cultural context this event was stirring up, making waves in our stagnant domestic pond. Pride goeth before. . . what? How do you brag about something you’ve been conditioned to ignore? In this case, as this story spread, America began to decide that pride was better; it was time to grow up. Bills were soon introduced in state legislatures to allow the sales of wine in grocery stores, and among the retailers visiting California wineries were executives of major supermarket chains; interstate shipping of wine began to open up (my brother in Philadelphia no longer had to smuggle in decent wine from adjoining New Jersey, risking a fine every time). Brick by legal brick, the walls of repression were being disassembled.
The trickle-down effect was extraordinary. The next year, I was in Tallahassee, Florida, to testify on a bill allowing wine sales in grocery stores. At a small, unassuming restaurant near the state capitol, I stared for a long while at the wine list, which was six reds, six whites, one pink, and one sparkler, all mediocre, and after a while, my elderly waitress leaned over and whispered, “Try one of the American ones, they’re better than the French. It’s official—somebody proved it last year.” I had the feeling that it was the first wine recommendation she’d ever made in a long career.
And Frank Prial’s wisecrack became a prediction in ways no one could have foreseen. Wine tasting had not only become a popular indoor sport, but also a valuable (and widely reported) marketing tool. In 1979, the influential GaultMillau magazine staged an international competition in Paris, with some more shocking results, not only with California wines winning top places again, but also Australia and other regions. Oregon did well with Pinot Noir, and Robert and Veronique Drouhin of Burgundy established a winery there as a result. In New York, a taste-off with German wines gave Finger Lakes Riesling producers cause for joy, and serious bragging rights. There were reversals of fortune, too: An enterprising Australian importer staged a tasting of Cabernet Sauvignons, with California tasters, which Australia won, and in 2000, a taste-off of super-premium Californians and Bordeaux was handily won by the French. What goes around…
Most importantly, wine had entered the American conversation, part of the mainstream. There were several reasons, but Steven’s Paris tasting was one of the major launching pads. And, in the end, the old adage was correct: “A rising tide floats all boats.” Everybody’s sales went up, from Gallo to someone who owns a small parcel in Mendocino you’ve never heard of, to Oregon and Margaret River, Burgundy, and Rioja. Several wineries in Mexico stopped distilling their wine into awful brandy and got their vinous act together. Zinfandel was planted in Brazil. Liberalization? Globalization? Whatever. One thing for sure: It wasn’t inevitable, and it’s here to stay.
Steven called one last time recently, to say goodbye. I said, in the end, he’d made a big difference. “A good big difference, I hope,” he replied, still self-effacing. That said it all: He did and it was.
Brian St. Pierre
Tributes from:-
Elin McCoy on Steven
It’s such terribly sad news for everyone in the wine world that Steven Spurrier is no longer with us in person, though he will live on in treasured memories of him. I’m remembering his generosity and kindness, openness and curiosity about every new wine and place, and especially his love of good writing about wine and much else. In an email last year, he reported he was reading “fabulous” Zuleika Dobson and Elizabeth David’s An Omelette and a Glass of Wine, and drinking only old reds; that particular night he was decanting a 2001 Vigna Fontalero Brunello Collemato.
Not to mention that he was always the most elegantly dressed man at any wine event, his pink shirts crisp even as the temperature rose.
But maybe what I most think about is his wonderful gift for embracing life, which buoyed me up whenever I saw or talked to him. Covid lockdown with Bella, he emailed last summer, was turning into “a bucolic holiday in Dorset,” with long walks and observing the very first budburst in their Chardonnay vineyard. I will miss his presence in the world very, very much.
John Stimpfig on Steven
Steven really was an irreplaceable 'one-off’, which is partly why everyone who knew him mourns his passing. He was always interested, passionate, enthusiastic, curious and open minded about wine, Moreover, he was a remarkable taster - without bias. If something was good, he didn’t care where it came from. The most important thing was quality, quality, quality. He was also extremely supportive to younger people in the trade, whatever their background - me included. And he was always full of surprises and stories, having lived such a full, rich and adventurous life. What he achieved during the course of his immensely varied career is genuinely remarkable. Truly, a great wine life.
Jane Anson on Steven
What do I remember most about Steven? That he was generous with his time, that he never took himself too seriously, that he wore his immense knowledge lightly, that he was kind, that he inspired respect and admiration but also friendships that lasted for decades. I regularly meet people who knew him from his days in Paris, or from his work with Decanter, or from his myriad business adventures, and you immediately feel a shared bond. 'Oh, you know Steven...' with a smile. He should have had decades more ahead of him. But we are all better for him having chosen wine as the place to spend his life.
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