This week I’m putting two weighty wine tomes head-to-head. Representing the old school we have Michael Broadbent, and taking him on the young (ish) Turk Neal Martin.
First, let me thank you again for the previous one of these. Both the Lynch and Matthews books are first rate. I have also started buying wine from Patrick and it is excellent. He is so incredibly helpful, I have him on WhatsApp. It's a shame he doesn't venture outside of Burgundy when importing. I'm now just trying to track down a low alcohol Beaujolais to better understand Lynch's rantings about chaptalisation...
If anyone reading this wants a better sense of Broadbent, Jancis Robinson produced a show in the early 1990s which is available on YouTube called Vintner's Tales profiling various wine personalities.
Broadbent is at 28:18 and is exactly as you describe him - the classic Christies/Sotheby's man providing a veneer of sobriety and class to what is a fundamentally spivvy business.
As regards these two books, I must confess that neither sounds at all attractive. Particularly, the Broadbent. As you note, he comes out of the Jefferson affair very poorly - readers may be interested in reading The Billionaire's Vinegar for a full account of the matter (overlong as all magazine articles turned into books are, but worth a read). Whatever one thinks of the bottles in question and Broadbent's judgment in lending them his imprimatur, the whole Rodenstock matter is really quite repulsive. The fashion for verticals of great wines is so vulgar and 1980s (one thinks of Arnold and Rambo films) it is hard to respect anyone who played any sort of part in it - I.e. Broadbent. Furthermore, given the rhapsodies he went into over the supposed Jefferson wine - which was tasted with great ceremony I recall at Chateau Mouton-Rothschild as described in the book - one must really wonder how good a wine taster he may actually have been. No-one can know of course, but the whole thing was so preposterous that the sense of the emperor parading around in new clothes cannot but spring to mind. When one connects that to the multiple studies which show that most people cannot tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine when tasted blind, it is a salutary reminder of how much nonsense at all levels permeates the wine industry.
Thanks for all this. I am delighted you have made contact with Patrick. I'll have a look at this video now. To be honest, neither book is really aimed at me, though I was surprised how much I enjoyed Martin's. They're for the people who collect wine and follow the en primeurs etc.
Broadbent writes a short forward to Richard Olney's book on Yquem (1986). The following is a fair sample:
"Over the past thirty-odd years I have been privileged to taste - in fact to drink - even I do not spit our nectar - not fewer than 60 vintages of Yquem, the oldest being the fabled 1784 tasted in the company of Alexandre de Lur Saluces at one of Hardy Rodenstock's remarkable fine and rare wine "happenings". This was in the autumn of 1985. The wine had never been recorked. It had none of the faults of old age, being neither oxidised nor pricked with acidity; it was just perfect. But this is one of the extraordinary qualities of Yquem; its uncanny ability to remain sound and drinkable no matter what its age, and sometimes, no matter what its appearance. Rodenstock's previous tasting, in 1984, also featured a group of vintages of Yquem, the most memorable of which was also the most unlikely. Coincidentally, just a century younger than the "Jefferson" vintage just referred to, this 1884 Yquem was extraordinary. I clearly recall its glorious mid-gold/amber colour with a hint of rust; above all its extraordinary orange-blossom-and-honey bouquet which assailed the nostrils and held, without fading, in the glass for twelve hours; still sweet, soft, creamy and with perfect acidity."
HIs writing is, in my view, very much an acquired taste - albeit one can see why he was successful building up from nothing the Christies wine department.
Incidentally, the Oleny book is excellent. He includes vintage notes at the end including the 1784 and 1787 both of which were "discovered in an undivulged quarter of Paris" by Mr Rodenstock...
At 10 mins in there is Jancis’ profile of Bill Baker, perhaps my favourite Wine Merchant of all time, and a reminder of just how different things were back in the 1980s.
Lovely stuff. I like the idea of linking the wine and the events of the year. Reminds me of the bit in Highlander where the immortal central character opens a bottle of 1783 brandy (that he bought new) in 1985. “1783 was a very good year. Mozart wrote his great mass. The Montgolfier brothers went up in their first balloon. And England recognized the independence of the united states.” Loved that as a lad. Anyway, you might have a typo. A ‘49 palmer drunk in ‘46 is precocious indeed!
First, let me thank you again for the previous one of these. Both the Lynch and Matthews books are first rate. I have also started buying wine from Patrick and it is excellent. He is so incredibly helpful, I have him on WhatsApp. It's a shame he doesn't venture outside of Burgundy when importing. I'm now just trying to track down a low alcohol Beaujolais to better understand Lynch's rantings about chaptalisation...
If anyone reading this wants a better sense of Broadbent, Jancis Robinson produced a show in the early 1990s which is available on YouTube called Vintner's Tales profiling various wine personalities.
It may be watched here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av0ESUM8lXM
Broadbent is at 28:18 and is exactly as you describe him - the classic Christies/Sotheby's man providing a veneer of sobriety and class to what is a fundamentally spivvy business.
As regards these two books, I must confess that neither sounds at all attractive. Particularly, the Broadbent. As you note, he comes out of the Jefferson affair very poorly - readers may be interested in reading The Billionaire's Vinegar for a full account of the matter (overlong as all magazine articles turned into books are, but worth a read). Whatever one thinks of the bottles in question and Broadbent's judgment in lending them his imprimatur, the whole Rodenstock matter is really quite repulsive. The fashion for verticals of great wines is so vulgar and 1980s (one thinks of Arnold and Rambo films) it is hard to respect anyone who played any sort of part in it - I.e. Broadbent. Furthermore, given the rhapsodies he went into over the supposed Jefferson wine - which was tasted with great ceremony I recall at Chateau Mouton-Rothschild as described in the book - one must really wonder how good a wine taster he may actually have been. No-one can know of course, but the whole thing was so preposterous that the sense of the emperor parading around in new clothes cannot but spring to mind. When one connects that to the multiple studies which show that most people cannot tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine when tasted blind, it is a salutary reminder of how much nonsense at all levels permeates the wine industry.
Thanks for all this. I am delighted you have made contact with Patrick. I'll have a look at this video now. To be honest, neither book is really aimed at me, though I was surprised how much I enjoyed Martin's. They're for the people who collect wine and follow the en primeurs etc.
Broadbent writes a short forward to Richard Olney's book on Yquem (1986). The following is a fair sample:
"Over the past thirty-odd years I have been privileged to taste - in fact to drink - even I do not spit our nectar - not fewer than 60 vintages of Yquem, the oldest being the fabled 1784 tasted in the company of Alexandre de Lur Saluces at one of Hardy Rodenstock's remarkable fine and rare wine "happenings". This was in the autumn of 1985. The wine had never been recorked. It had none of the faults of old age, being neither oxidised nor pricked with acidity; it was just perfect. But this is one of the extraordinary qualities of Yquem; its uncanny ability to remain sound and drinkable no matter what its age, and sometimes, no matter what its appearance. Rodenstock's previous tasting, in 1984, also featured a group of vintages of Yquem, the most memorable of which was also the most unlikely. Coincidentally, just a century younger than the "Jefferson" vintage just referred to, this 1884 Yquem was extraordinary. I clearly recall its glorious mid-gold/amber colour with a hint of rust; above all its extraordinary orange-blossom-and-honey bouquet which assailed the nostrils and held, without fading, in the glass for twelve hours; still sweet, soft, creamy and with perfect acidity."
HIs writing is, in my view, very much an acquired taste - albeit one can see why he was successful building up from nothing the Christies wine department.
Incidentally, the Oleny book is excellent. He includes vintage notes at the end including the 1784 and 1787 both of which were "discovered in an undivulged quarter of Paris" by Mr Rodenstock...
Many thanks for this link to Vintner’s Tales.
At 10 mins in there is Jancis’ profile of Bill Baker, perhaps my favourite Wine Merchant of all time, and a reminder of just how different things were back in the 1980s.
Yes the Bill Baker one is a highlight - 'bloody socialists!'
It’s a lovely episode. His obit in Decanter speaks for itself. https://www.decanter.com/obituaries/bill-baker-dies-85054/
Lovely stuff. I like the idea of linking the wine and the events of the year. Reminds me of the bit in Highlander where the immortal central character opens a bottle of 1783 brandy (that he bought new) in 1985. “1783 was a very good year. Mozart wrote his great mass. The Montgolfier brothers went up in their first balloon. And England recognized the independence of the united states.” Loved that as a lad. Anyway, you might have a typo. A ‘49 palmer drunk in ‘46 is precocious indeed!
That'll be the old Broadbent time machine, or more likely a typo. Thanks Andrew!