The wine trade lost an icon with the passing of Michael Broadbent on March 17th at the age of 93, and I feel like I lost an old friend.

Sweeping floors and delivering wine at age 25 for Layton’s and then Harvey’s, he moved to Christies at 39 to revive the fine wine division and auction department—and the rest is history! He spent 43 years at Christie’s, a total of 65 years in the trade. He wrote over 400 articles for Decanter magazine while becoming an internationally known author, as well as the face of fine wine for a generation to come.

When I started at K&L Liquors (before the name change to K&L Wine Merchants!) in 1978 fine wine was not a hot item or well respected. K&L’s selection primarily consisted of 4.0-, 3.0-, and 1.5-liter wines; and I might add I was a great unloader of those trucks! The 750ml selection consisted of “allocated” wines like Wente Grey Riesling and Blanc de Blancs, and Charles Krug Chenin Blanc for the whites, while the reds were Charles Krug and Louis Martini Cabernet Sauvignon. The Bordeaux selection was four wines deep: Mouton Cadet, plus three estates that I, to this day, routinely taste in Bordeaux and greatly admire—Ch. Coufran, Ch. Greysac, and Ch. La Tour de By, whom I had the great pleasure of visiting last year for the first time.

When Clyde finally persuaded Todd that fine wine was the future, we were on our way. Clyde’s love for the George de Latour Cabernets from Beaulieu Vineyards and the 1978 Ch. Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande had spilled over onto me and massive tastings soon ensued—weekly at the store as well as every evening at home. Wine books became my solace.

Those early days laid the foundation that K&L is famous for today, selling California and Bordeaux wine.

When Michael Broadbent came out with The Great Vintage Wine Book in 1980 it was perfect timing, as we were tasting quite a bit of Bordeaux wine but knew little about it. This blue book was a great revelation to me and my close wine friends. Along with Hugh Johnson’s World Atlas of Wine, which I carried in my briefcase for over 25 years, it became the most important book in my life.

These early years were also my “Animal House” years and privacy was rare. Still, almost every Saturday I would buy a different Bordeaux and lock myself in the bathroom, take a bath, and sip a wine like 1976 Ch. Gruaud Larose, and look back and study other vintages of this wine in Michael’s book. With Bordeaux being 4,500 miles away, I dreamed of going there one day, and this book brought me right there without leaving my home—right to the famous dirt and the weather conditions that shaped every vintage! And then there were his tasting notes from each estate: thousands and thousands, his note-taking style was direct, precise, sometimes whimsical, and never longwinded. These notes were from a great professional taster, who worked in the trade, keenly aware of all aspects of provenance and conditions, covering wines tasted from three centuries of winemaking. Most importantly, he was not a journalist! He wrote with the consumer in mind, not the producer, and had a non-biased, objective approach.

If you’ve wondered about the great vintage of 1945 and what Ch. Latour tastes like, by the release of his book’s updated 2002 verison, Broadbent had tasted it 28 times! If you were interested in the differences of great vintages like 1928 and 1929 or what was Thomas Jefferson’s favorite Ch. d’Yquem (1784), it was all in the book. In my circle of wine friends the book took on a life of its own, it was like a wine bible, and that blue book became known solely as “Broadbent.” Over the years many copies mysteriously disappeared from my desk never to return.

Since my first trip to Bordeaux in 1990 I’ve been lucky to meet some legendary wine experts: Edmund Penning Roswell, Clive Coates, Robert Parker, Steven Spurrier, Bill Blatch, Neal Martin, David Peppercorn and his wife Serena Sudcliffe, James Suckling, Michel Bettane, and Michel Rolland. All of these fine folks were very nice to me, but I never ran into Mr. Broadbent.

That changed in 2003 when he released his updated version, and K&L arranged to have a book signing in Redwood City at noon. To correspond with that I hosted a Bordeaux tasting at 1pm. We set up a table and stacked up the books, and by 11:30 customers were lined up 30 deep to the doors. Almost everyone was a customer of mine, and we were all really very pumped and excited. Mr. Broadbent arrived in a sharp dark-blue suit and a smile on his face; I walked up to give him a big-loud-so-everyone-could-hear-me “Welcome to K&L, it is an honor to have you here sir!” He stood up and we shook hands. It was then that I said, “We have some great fans and buyers of Bordeaux here to see you today. And what makes it all the more impressive is that they are also big ROBERTPARKERHEADS!” I received some mortified looks from the customers in line, but Michael and I had a good laugh!

It was a different time back then, and the Redwood City tasting room was a 4x10-foot closet. With my big body in there, there was a maximum occupancy of about 4 people. Normally I would have 30 regulars who always attend but on that day there were far more. I was reaching over the wine racks and floor stacks in the store to pour!

Suddenly the customers were parting like the sea before me! Broadbent was coming to the tasting bar! He leaned against the wall, and I could tell was very amused and almost laughing at our setup, but enjoying every minute. And then he blurted out so everyone could hear him, “I just HAD to see what Americans were enjoying with their pudding!” I’ll taste the Sauternes he said; to be honest I don’t remember what estate was poured but the odds are very high it was Ch. Guiraud, Ch. Suduiraut, or Doisy-Vedrines. It was a great day at K&L and a very special day in my life.

One of the only good things about this virus and being at home is that I found my first Broadbent purchased on 9-19-1981, and I also found my tastings notes from my first of now 55 visits to Bordeaux from 1990.

I believe we have to thank Tommy Layton, whom Michael first worked for in 1952, and who firmly recommended that Michael take notes on every wine he tastes. Sincere thanks to Michael for taking that advice to heart and sharing it with the world.

Let’s raise a glass to the life of Mr. Broadbent and to a great harvest for our world.

Cheers!

- Ralph Sands