A Life in Wine by Steven Spurrier

A Life in Wine by Steven Spurrier is a hardback memoir from one of the wine trade's most influential figures.

Spurrier worked as a merchant, a buyer, an educator and a lecturer, wrote books and wine courses, and filed more than 300 columns for Decanter. He is best remembered for staging the 1976 Judgement of Paris, which put California in front of French judges and changed how the wine world thought about the New World. The memoir traces the incidents, adventures, ideas and discoveries that shaped his career, including the years spent tasting and judging the finest wines and working alongside the people who made them. Published by Academie du Vin Library in 2020, hardback, 288 pages.

This suits readers who like wine history told from the inside, and anyone curious about the Judgement of Paris beyond the film version. It reads well a chapter at a time, and makes a straightforward gift for someone who has been in the trade long enough to recognise the names.