Renowned writer and expert on fine wine

STEVEN Spurrier, who has died aged 79, was a British wine expert and merchant who was described as a champion of French wine by renowned writer Jancis Robinson.

He was born in Cambridge but had made his home on the Bride Valley English wine estate in Dorset.

He organised the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976, which unexpectedly elevated the status of California wine – the Judgement of Paris – and promoted the expansion of wine production in the New World.

He was also the co-founder of the Académie du Vin and Christie’s

Wine Course, in addition to authoring and co-authoring several wine books.

The Académie du Vin Library paid tribute, saying: “He will always be remembered for founding the Académie du Vin, the celebrated Judgement of Paris and, in recent years, the Académie du Vin Library and, together with his wife Bella, the Bride Valley Vineyard in Dorset, England – as well as much else besides.”

According to Wikipedia, Spurrier’s interest in wine was first piqued after drinking 1908 Cockburn’s port when he was 13 years old.

Spurrier entered the wine trade in 1964 as a trainee with London’s oldest wine merchant, Christopher and Co.

In 1970, he moved to Paris where he persuaded an elderly lady to sell him her small wine store located in a passageway off the Rue Royale.

From 1971, he ran the wine shop Les Caves de la Madeleine where clients were encouraged to taste wines before they bought them.

In 1973, he started L’Académie du Vin, France’s first private wine school. He returned to the UK in 1988 and became a wine consultant and journalist.