Steven Spurrier

Early Years

He studied at Rugby School and the London School of Economics before entering the wine trade, which placed Steven Spurrier among merchants, bottles, and the daily discipline of the business. In 1964, he began as a trainee in London and went on to work as a wine merchant at Christopher's, building his grounding in the trade step by step. He summed up that start plainly: “I was in a position to choose my profession rather than have to have it chosen for me.” The line is spare, but it gets to the point: the work was chosen deliberately, not inherited by default.

Making a Name

By 1971, he had become the owner of a wine shop in Paris, moving from staff role to proprietor in the city that would become central to his work. Two years later, he founded Académie du Vin in the same city, extending the trade beyond retail into instruction and public discussion. The progression from trainee to merchant, owner, and founder gave Steven Spurrier’s career a direct momentum, while keeping it rooted in the practical language of wine. Paris was the setting where that identity took shape and where his work began to carry wider reach.

The Present

His most visible later turn came in 2006, when he organized a 30-year reprise of The Judgment of Paris at Copia in Napa, with simultaneous tastings in London and Napa. The event was built around return: three decades on, memory set against the present tense of the bottle in front of the room. That suited Steven Spurrier’s way of working, moving between commerce, education, and public framing. He later put it in his own words: “It didn’t really work out the way we’d hoped, so I said to my wife, well, we’ll go back to Paris and I’ll go back into the wine trade.”

Signature

Steven's signature dishes include Judgment of Paris.

In Their Words “It didn’t really work out the way we’d hoped, so I said to my wife, well, we’ll go back to Paris and I’ll go back into the wine trade.”