史蒂芬斯普瑞尔,颠覆了葡萄酒世界的助教ting, Dies at 79

The world was paying little attention on May 24, 1976, when a small wine tasting was held in Paris at the Intercontinental Hotel. But the echoes of that tasting, later called the Judgment of Paris, have resounded for decades.

The instigator, Steven Spurrier, an Englishman who owned a wine shop and wine school in Paris, had set up a blind tasting of 20 wines — 10 white and 10 red — for nine French judges, including some of the top names in the French wine and food establishment.

Of the whites, all made from the chardonnay grape, six were from California, four from Burgundy. The reds, all made largely or entirely from cabernet sauvignon, included six from California and four from Bordeaux.

It was hardly thought to be a fair fight. As has been recounted countless times, the judges were thoroughly convinced that California wines were inferior.

“啊，回法国，”一位法官在品尝了纳帕谷霞多丽后叹了口气。另一个嗅着bâtard-montrachet的人宣称：“这绝对是加利福尼亚。它没有鼻子。”

完成后，令人震惊的共识揭示了最喜欢的葡萄酒是Montelena城堡的1973年霞多丽和1973年在纳帕谷的Stag的Leap Cellars的Cabernet Sauvignon。

美国人庆祝了，法国人陷入了惊讶，并在盛行的名声中等待着Spurrier先生，后者从事葡萄酒企业家的职业生涯很长。

Spurrier先生于3月9日在英格兰多塞特郡利顿·切尼（Litton Cheney）村去世。他当时79岁。原因是癌症。Académiedu Vin图书馆，由Spurrier先生创立的葡萄酒烙印。

The Paris tasting might have swiftly been forgotten had not a single reporter, George M. Taber of Time magazine,在场目睹事件。他的文章“巴黎判断”为加利福尼亚葡萄酒行业提供了急需的提升，在他们寻求批准批准和公众接受时，借用了葡萄酒商的必威手机登录国际信誉。营销人员使用品尝来销售全世界的加利福尼亚葡萄酒。

“It rocketed us to fame,” said Bo Barrett, whose father, Jim Barrett, was the proprietor of Chateau Montelena.

Warren Winiarski, the founder of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, said in 1983: “The phone started to ring pretty quickly. The wines really took off.”

多年以来，葡萄酒专业人士 - 偶尔由Spurrier先生亲自加入 - 业余爱好者重新制作了品尝。

Mr. Taber, the reporter, in 2005出版了一本书, “Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine.” A 2008 film, “Bottle Shock，“ 和艾伦·里克曼（Alan Rickman）playing Mr. Spurrier, depicted the tasting as the climax of a triumph-of-the-underdog story.

最近，“索姆”系列的导演杰森·怀斯（Jason Wise）是一部关于侍酒师的纪录片的三部曲，他制作了一部有关1976年品尝“巴黎的审判”的纪录片，该纪录片将于今年夏天发行。

As for Mr. Spurrier, he leveraged the tasting into different careers in wine, with both triumphs and failures.

With the shop Caves de la Madeleine and the school L’Académie du Vin as a base, he built a successful mini-empire in and around Paris. By 1980 he had opened two wine bars, Bistrot à Vin and the Blue Fox, as well as a restaurant, Moulin du Village.

Other schemes did not work out. A plan for a wholesale wine storage cellar was an expensive mistake, and while efforts to open distant outposts of L’Académie du Vins succeeded at first, they did not end well.

在法国，随之而来的税收问题。正如Spurrier先生在2018年出版的回忆录《 Spurrier纸牌之家》（Spurrier House of Cards House）在1988年倒闭的回忆录“史蒂文·斯普里尔（Steven Spurrier）：葡萄酒 - 一种生活方式”。

Spurrier先生于1990年与他的妻子贝拉（Bella）及其两个孩子一起回到伦敦，试图恢复自己的职业生涯。他是一位不懈的旅行者，就葡萄酒进行了交谈，并向航空公司就可以为乘客提供服务的建议。他写了一系列教育葡萄酒书，并于1993年与decanter，英国消费者杂志，撰写专栏和领先的品尝。

Steven Spurrier was born on Oct. 5, 1941, to John and Pamela Spurrier in Cambridge, England. His father, a tank officer during World War II, joined his family’s sand-and-gravel business in Derbyshire afterward, which boomed with postwar construction.

Steven attended Rugby, a boarding school, and the London School of Economics. He was an indifferent student, more interested in pursuing art, jazz and wine.

His early impression of wine was formed as a 13-year-old, when his grandfather offered him a taste of port at a family Christmas Eve dinner — Cockburn’s 1908, Mr. Spurrier recalled. “There was never any doubt in my mind that I would make wine my career,” he wrote.

他于1964年在伦敦领先的葡萄酒公司克里斯托弗（Christopher's）找到了自己的第一份工作。那年，在贝斯沃特溜冰场上，他遇到了贝拉·劳森（Bella Lawson），他于1968年结婚。

The family gravel business was sold in 1964, and the substantial check Mr. Spurrier received for his shares — the equivalent of roughly $7 million today — was to finance adventures and business opportunities for years.

作为他的葡萄酒教育的一部分，Spurrier先生被派往当时被认为是伟大的葡萄酒区的旅行，其中大部分是法国人，也是莱茵河，西班牙雪利酒和葡萄牙的港口小屋。

随着他在英国危险危险的税率危险的新财富，他决定在1968年去普罗旺斯（Provence），然后于1970年撤离巴黎。右岸的时尚第9条。

有一天在街上走路时，Spurrier先生在18世纪购物街机的CitéBerryer中经过了一家小葡萄酒商店，即De la Madeleine Caves de la Madeleine。他很快购买了商店，并着手制作自己的商店。

英国人假定将葡萄酒卖给法国人似乎是轻率的，但是Spurrier先生竭尽全力。很快，与两个合作伙伴，国际先驱论坛报的葡萄酒作家乔恩·温罗斯（Jon Winroth）和喜欢葡萄酒的美国外籍人士帕特里夏·加拉格尔（Patricia Gallagher），他在毗邻的建筑物中开设了L'Académiedu Vin。

Spurrier先生告诉先生：“关于法国人的神话，他们对葡萄酒的了解仅仅是因为他们长大了。”The Times in 1977。“实际上，大多数法国人对葡萄酒一无所知。他们真的不在乎。他们关心食物。他们可以谈论酱汁的细微差别，但葡萄酒实际上只是可以清除下一次食物味道的口感。因此，我们正在尝试改变一点。”

无论是出售葡萄酒还是简单地喝酒，在他的晚年，他成为了葡萄酒作家的年长政治家。

He had one last adventure in wine to come. In 1987, the Spurriers bought a farm in Dorset near the south coast of England, and he decided that the chalk soil, similar to what can be found in Champagne and Chablis, was a perfect place for vines.

They did not start planting until 2009, by which time a burgeoning sparkling wine industry had taken root in southern England. Their sparkling wine,新娘谷，在2014年首次发行。

虽然葡萄酒曾是Spurrier先生的职业生涯，但艺术是他的热情。他在多塞特郡建造了一个雕塑花园，并用自己喜欢的作品填满了家。

“Wine is a way of life, but art is the real thing,” he said in an interview withClub Oenologique，葡萄酒杂志。“艺术对我来说在情感上比葡萄酒更重要 - 没有比赛。”