Edmund Penning-Rowsell

Edmund Lionel Penning-Rowsell (1913–2002) was a British journalist considered the doyen of Britain's writers on wine,[1][2] and possibly the world's longest-serving wine correspondent.[3]

Biography

During the Depression years, his father's printing business went bankrupt, his education at Marlborough was cut short.[2] He joined The Morning Post of London in 1930,[3] and in 1935 he moved into publishing.[2]

His interest in wine was stimulated by a wedding gift in 1937 of membership of the Wine Society, his love for wine sparked by a tasting of the 1923 Château Talbot.[3] He later became the Wine Society's longest-serving chairman, from 1964 to 1987.[4] Aided by those in the trade he gradually built up his knowledge and wine came to dominate his life.[3]

In 1954, he started writing a column about wine for Country Life, the first of many such enterprises. For 23 years, he was a wine columnist for Financial Times,[2] and also wrote wine articles for Marxism Today.[3] His speciality was the wines of Bordeaux, where his expertise was recognised, and which provided the subject of his magnum opus The Wines of Bordeaux, considered a masterpiece of research.[5]

Michael Broadbent noted that Penning-Rowsell had one of the best private wine collections in England.[6] Working with Broadbent, he became an adviser on wine to auctioneers Christie's, and regularly reported on wine auction results.

Penning-Rowsell was awarded by the French government the Ordre National du Mérite Agricole in 1971 and the Ordre du Mérite National in 1981.[3][4][6] He was known for using the phrase, "Speaking as a man of the Left"[2]

Bibliography

See also

References

  1. ↑ Robinson, Jancis (2006). The Oxford Companion to Wine, third edition. Oxford University Press. p. 105. ISBN 0-19-860990-6.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Prial, Frank J., The New York Times (13 March 2002). "Man of the Left Who Put Wines to Right".
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Levy, Paul, The Independent (7 March 2002). "Obituary: Edmund Penning-Rowsell".
  4. 1 2 winepros.com.au. The Oxford Companion to Wine. "Penning-Rowsell, Edmund".
  5. ↑ winepros.com.au. The Oxford Companion to Wine. "literature of wine".
  6. 1 2 Broadbent, Michael, The Guardian (5 March 2002). "Obituary: Edmund Penning-Rowsell, Wine writer and collector, especially of Bordeaux".
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