Steven Spurrier was an influential British wine writer, merchant and grower. See Judgment of Paris. He joined the wine trade in 1964. He then moved to Paris and in 1971 bought a wine shop there, Caves de la Madeleine. He founded a private wine school called the Academie du Vin, the first of its type in France. In 1976 Spurrier organised the Judgment of Paris, a blind tasting of French and Californian wines in which California triumphed. He also created the Christie’s Wine Course with Michael Broadbent MW.

British wine importer and merchant Roy Richards once told me the following: “1974, and I was in Paris, teaching and playing rugby. In my spare time I investigated wine shops, one of which was the highly reputed Caves de la Madeleine. On an occasion early on, I was wearing a cream suit I had made for me by my tailor in Liverpool – I must have been on my way to a lunch or something. Stephen, who was serving in the shop, asked me who my tailor was and had the suit been made in England? I replied yes, but how did he know? The answer was that French tailors do not put four buttons on the cuffs of their jackets. Stephen also taught me a lot about wine.”

Spurrier also became involved in winemaking, having invested in Château Gamage in Bordeaux, and Bride Valley Vineyard in Dorset in the UK.