Steven Spurrier (wine)

Steven Spurrier (born 1941) is a British wine expert and former merchant in Paris, France, who has been described as a champion of French wine. Spurrier organized the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976, which promoted the expansion of wine production in the New World. He is also the founder of the Academie du Vin and Christie's Wine Course, in addition to authoring and co-authoring several wine books.

Having been educated in Rugby School and the London School of Economics, 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, which achieved recognition as a highly regarded specialist wine shop. In 1973 he started L’Academie du Vin, France’s first private wine school, which was central to the wine education of several wine personalities such as French wine writer Michel Bettane, and Charles F. Shaw, namesake of "Two Buck Chuck".

Spurrier went on to stage the influential "Judgement of Paris" Tasting of 1976, when a Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon from California were ranked above some of the most prestigious wines of Burgundy and Bordeaux.

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