HUGH JOHNSON ON MICHAEL BROADBENT
for his monumental Vintage Wine of 2002, which greatly expands on the notes, adds context, anecdote and the fun which is an inescapable part of his character. Broadbents (Michael, Daphne his late wife, and children Emma and Bartholomew) are incapable of taking life seriously.
“A Dealer of Genius” The vibe of the 1960s was not limited to pot, the Beatles and rock n’ roll. Even in the somnolent wine trade something stirred. 1966 in particular was a banner year: Robert Mondavi opened his Napa winery, signalling the relaunch of California wine, and Michael Broadbent restarted Christie’s Wine Auctions, dormant for decades. Contrast and complement: the future and the history of great wines taking on new life. Coincidentally, in the same month as Michael picked up his gavel, my own first wine book came out. There was something in the air.
Hugh Johnson, world renowned author of The
Michael brought a certain rigour to a trade not famous for self-examination. He had joined – at Harvey’s of Bristol – a team of benign enthusiasts for wine led by England’s arch wine taster, Harry Waugh. Harry’s palate was famous; his judgements impeccable, but his utterances, shall we say, left a lot to the imagination. I tasted with him over a decade on the board of Château Latour. ‘Good colour,’ he would say: ‘Distinct nose; typical. Full body. A nice wine.’ And Harry was not unique: since the days of Saintsbury’s Notes on a Cellarbook almost any attempt to describe a wine, however guarded, obtuse or plain boring, was seen as daring.
son’s Wine Companion and Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book has sold nearly 20 million in his six decades as a wine writer. He is equally
There was a treasury of experience and expertise in different branches of the trade: legendary tasters of port or claret; salesmen with a miraculous capacity for champagne, but no real teaching or training. In 1908 a naturalized Frenchman, André L Simon, inaugurated the first wine trade lectures. Half a century later the Vintners’ Company initiated the Institute of Masters of Wine, another seed that bore fruit in the 1960s. By 1970 the first woman, Sarah Morphew, passed its challenging exam.
his much-loved Trad’s Diary (now online) as well as penning The Principles of
Michael must have noticed the lack of urgency, or indeed order, in his new calling. He was trained as an architect, and is a pianist and the most precise of draftsmen. The result was his drafting, he claims at one sitting, of a business-like primer on wine tasting that has set a widely accepted standard for over 50 years.
Gardening and Trees.
In a sense it is a period piece; it has its archaic moments. More importantly though, it sets out the classical, logical (and one might say inevitable) method of forming an intelligent opinion of a wine, a method that is now simply routine. Above all it is practical: how to set about it; tasting for two people or 200. What do you need? How much? And don’t forget pencils and paper. At the heart of it is Michael’s firm belief and constant practice: you must take notes – which he has been doing for 66 years… Michael’s little red notebooks are a legend. Over 150 of them, each page ruled to record wine, occasion, appearance, nose and palate, and his conclusion. He is nothing if not disciplined and precise. It must have been a real effort at times, with Bacchus reigning all around, to lay out notebook and pen, even sometimes his wristwatch to record time since decanting, or from first sniff to final caudalie. They have been, of course, the source 10 Wine Tasting I
wine. One of his little red of his table, and would be with him at all times. He filled over 150 of them (identical format) with neat, hand-written tasting notes, all readily accessed from the shelves of his office.
passionate about gardening, and for 44 years has kept
contemplation of a mystery notebooks sits to the right
World Atlas of Wine, The Story of Wine, Hugh John-
Michael in deep
Wine Tasting emerged as a slim but stylish volume with a jacket drawn by our mutual friend Charles Mozley, a charming, chaotic, prolific artist who found many patrons in the wine trade, which in Michael’s time included Christie’s. For a while the firm’s small tasting room in King Street, St James’s, was a focus for the fine wine world. Ancient wines that had slept in castle cellars for generations were winkled out by Michael and saw their first daylight there, among tasters (and buyers) who could hardly believe their luck. (The downside of Michael’s gift for such winkling was the drying-up of bargain supplies of old wines for the needy connoisseurs – I was one – who had patronized Restell’s auctions of what were thought of as trade remnants. When Christie’s bought Restells it was goodbye to unnoticed cases of mature classed growths. No more 25-shilling Lafite.) Michael developed a public persona, elegant and apparently dignified, that suggested senior surgeon or QC – or indeed the very serious antique dealer he became. Pretty women seemed to form a queue behind his trim figure, his bicycle and his battered hat. Like a great bibliophile he (and often Daphne) would reverently take each volume (or bottle) from its shelf, respecting the dust of ages, and note its position and condition as evidence of its provenance: the very stuff of art dealers, or least auction houses with high rollers in their sights. We became close friends, and collaborated on various memorable occasions. I once asked him where he changed into the dinner jacket he seemed to wear every evening. We were just crossing St James’s Street. ‘In a flat up there,’ he said, pointing to a window above Prunier’s famous restaurant. I went on to buy the flat, at a price that seems unreal today; it was our pied à terre for 30 years. When Christie’s started auctions in the Far East I was a consultant to Jardines in Hong Kong and Tokyo. Jardines facilitated the shipping of rare wines for Christie’s, the logistics and interpretation of what at first seemed a pretty rum idea; second-hand liquor. Rum until you heard the prices. The wine trade was becoming more and more international. America gradually authorized wine auctions. The sleepy old world of fine wine discovered glamour; from being the domain of the dedicated and worthy it became another catwalk for the wealthy. Much of the credit – or blame – goes to Michael. He had added what the wine trade had lacked; a veneer of scholarship, and a dealer of genius.
HUGH JOHNSON OBE
I Wine Tasting 11
