Gabriel Wendler on Andre Simon ... Founder of the Wine and Food Society ... Prolific author on grape related matters ... Champagne aficionado ... Expert witness in wine litigation ... One bottle left in his cellar at time of death
THIS year marks 45 years since the death of Andre Simon - commander of the most excellent order of the British empire , co-founder of the Wine and Food Society, negociant, linguist, gastronome, author of over 100 publications on viticulture, wine and food.
Surprisingly, many contemporary wine aficionados have never heard of Andre Simon, or if they have, are not fully aware of the seriousness of his contribution to knowledge about wine and food.
Andre Simon was born adjacent to the 17th century Church of St. Sulpice, in St-Germain-des-Pres, Paris on February 28, 1877 - the same year as chief justice Sir John Latham and the closure of the Port Arthur penal settlement.
In the language of viticulture Simon was "pre-phylloxera" - i.e. born before decimation of the vineyards of France by sap sucking aphids.
As a young man his interests were writing and languages. His hope was to earn a living by journalism.
In 1894, aged 17, Simon visited London and there formed an amorous relationship with Edith, his future wife, with whom he would spend the next 65 years.
Andre Simon lived most of his life in England. Between 1900, and his co-establishment of the Wine and Food Society in 1933, Simon sold champagne as agent for Pommery & Greno, authored monographs for the wine and spirit trade, created a wine trade club, gave lectures on wine and developed a market for champagne in the Americas.
Simon: shocked to discover no Australian wines at the Melbourne Club Simon considered champagne "not a drink but an institution".
In November 1933 the Wine and Food Society had its inaugural meeting and dinner at the Cafe Royal in London's Regent Street. To the rapture of fellow members Simon described wine consumed at the dinner by adopting idolatrous arboreal references:
"The 1926 Chablis reminded me of the grace of the silver willow, the 1919 Montrachet the stateliness of the Italian poplar, the 1920 Cheval Blanc the magnificence of the purple beech, the 1870 Ch. Lafite the majesty of the royal oak."
Simon's business relationship with Pommery & Greno concluded abruptly when the exchange rate between the Pound and Franc crashed leaving him financially damaged.
He stopped selling champagne and for the next 37 years devoted himself to writing about wine and food, visiting major wine producing countries and promoting the international expansion of the Wine and Food Society.
By 1966 there were 20 chapters of the Wine and Food Society operating throughout Australia. Simon came to visit and inspected all the major Australian wine producing districts.
A dinner in his honour was arranged at the Melbourne Club where Simon was astonished to learn that in the first 100 years of the club's existence there had never been a bottle of Australian wine stored in its cellar.
On his return to England he penned The Wines, Vineyards and Vignerons of Australia. Simon succinctly described the vineyards of Australia as:
"Divided into two main groups, the quality group and the quantity group."
Simon was no stranger to the administration of English justice. Occasionally he was tendered as an expert witness in litigation concerning wine fraud. In a notorious defamation case, where a wine wholesaler publicly described a large shipment of wine from a supplier as "not wine but poison", Simon was called in the case for the defendant wholesaler.
Invited to taste a glass of the alleged poison, Simon testified that:
"I can swear it is not wine, I cannot tell you what it is. You had better ask a drain inspector."
Simon's answer demolished the plaintiff's case.
The corpus of Simon's contribution to wine and food literature was vast - just a few of his titles include: A Dictionary of Wine; In Vino Veritas; The Wine Connoisseur's Catechism; The Noble Grapes and Great Wines of France; The Great Wines of Germany; History of Champagne; Wine in Shakespeare's Plays; Wines and Liqueurs from A to Z; A Concise Encyclopaedia of Gastronomy; The Art of Good Living; The History of the Wine Trade in England from Roman Times to the End of the 17th Century.
It was suggested Simon deliberately timed his death to coincide with the least number of bottles remaining in his extensive wine cellar. There was one bottle left in his collection when he died in 1970 aged 93.
A memorial fund was set up in his name to further public education in wine and food. There is an international annual Andre Simon Food and Drink Book award and Memorial Lecture - the first delivered in 1971 by the grandee of wine commentary, Michael Broadbent.
In this, the 45th year of Andre Simon's death, it is worth remembering his metaphor for humanity:
"There is a great deal in common between us and our wines. Wines enjoy, just as we do, the gift of life, a loan rather than a gift since it is ours and theirs for a short time only; and all wines are, as we are, liable to sickness and doomed to death. Most wines are quite ordinary wines, as most of us are quite ordinary people. There are, unfortunately bad wines, as there are bad people, but not nearly so many as the publicity given to crimes leads one to believe."