Michael Broadbent

British wine critic (1927–2020)

John Michael Broadbent, MW (2 May 1927 – 17 March 2020), was a British wine critic, writer and auctioneer in a capacity as a Master of Wine. He was an authority on wine tasting and old wines.

Born in Yorkshire, the elder son of John Broadbent (1891–1963) and Hilary née Batty (1905–1998), he was educated at Oundle School. Commissioned into the Royal Artillery as Second Lieutenant in 1945, he served as Assistant Adjutant at Dover Castle 1947 48, before leaving the Army to train as an architect (ARIBA). In 1952, at the age of twenty five, Broadbent entered the wine trade first with Layton's, then with the West End wine merchants, Saccone & Speed, and from 1955 with Harvey's of Bristol. In 1960, he received the qualification of Master of Wine. In 1966, he resigned as Sales Director to start wine auctions at the London auction house Christie's which would lead him to trade in and taste a greater number of fine and rare wines than anyone else in the world. His tasting notes are estimated to number over 90,000 in more than 140 notebooks. As a wine writer, Broadbent was noted for publications of his records from a life of tasting wine. The Great Vintage Wine Book is a reference work with tasting notes from more than 6,000 wines dating back to the 17th century. In addition to authoring several wine books, he was a regular contributor to the wine magazines Vinum and Falstaff , and wrote monthly for Decanter since its inception in 1975. Broadbent awarded a wine up to five stars, a system unlike the numerical score of the American wine critic Robert Parker.

Broadbent was among the wine industry experts whose association with alleged wine forger, Hardy Rodenstock, during the 1980s caused much embarrassment. In July 2009, it was announced that Broadbent would sue Random House, the publishers of The Billionaire's Vinegar by Benjamin Wallace, an account of the "Jefferson bottles affair" and its court cases, for defamation of character, on claims that the book asserts Broadbent invented an auction bid and contains references to him colluding with Rodenstock. The suit was filed in London, and Random House initially stated it did not believe it had defamed Broadbent and would defend the lawsuit. In October 2009, Random House accepted that the allegations in the book were without foundation, removed the book from sale in the UK, made a full apology and paid Broadbent an undisclosed sum in damages. As Wallace was not party to the lawsuit or settlement, Random House continued to publish the book unamended, outside UK jurisdiction.