Original Annie Sommelier Pictorial Originally published on 2022-10-21
After a long and varied career, Master of Wine David Burn passed away last month at the age of 94.
In 1956, at the age of 28, David Burn was awarded the title of Master of Wine (MW) by The Vintners' Company and the Wine and Spirit Association of Great Britain, a title that David was one of the youngest of all wine masters. There are currently only 415 Master Wines in the world.
In 1963, David worked at Geo. Idle, Chapman & Co. while also chairing the Wine Masterclass, and after his official retirement in 1993, he continued to actively participate in the Masters of Wine tasting in London, helping students prepare for exams with his lifelong knowledge of wine.
Educated in Stowe, David served in Palestine as a member of the Royal Dragoon Guards before leaving the army in 1949 before crossing into the wine and spirits industry.
Starting as an intern, David started bottling dry red wine in the cellars of JLP Lebègue, a famous shipper in Bordeaux and Burgundy, and later became a wine sales representative, selling wine to hotels and restaurants in London and the South West.
David left JLP Lebègue in 1956 and in 1963 David joined Geo. Idle, Chapman & Co., a small family business specializing in liqueurs, where he was responsible for the wine business, working as well as chair of the Wine Master Course. At work, David was busy writing hundreds of pages of operation manuals to help the company build a bonded production center in a 200,000-square-foot warehouse, and after completing this task, David got tired of working for a large group and began to start a company with his wife, Diana, David Burns Vitners.
When the company opened in December 1971, however, faced with increasing marketing competition from supermarkets, David subsequently decided to retire from retail and focus on wholesale liquor to serve restaurants and hotels, and to develop the company's business into tastings that were unheard of at the time, which David saw as a perfect time with the advent of New World wines, having already travelled to California, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.
Soon after, these tastings became popular, such as the annual wine tasting at the Chewton Glen Hotel in New Milton, England, which was held for two days in a row because it was too popular; At the Motor Museum in Beaulieu, France, more than 600 people have been spectacularly tasting vintage wines in classic cars.
Over the next decade, the company continued to expand, opening many shops and bars, and David began to connect with the contacts he had built up over the years in the wine world to host winemaker nights. The Winemakers' Night is organised by top hotels and restaurants in the south of England, with the participation of winegrowers, winery operators and winemakers from Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne, Moselle, Tuscany, Jerez, Portugal, New Zealand and Australia.
Over the years, David became a leading supplier to the hospitality industry in the south of England, selling the company to the Grants of St James's winery in the Rhone Valley in France when he retired in 1993, and in his spare time David also enjoyed opera, golf and cricket, and still actively participated in wine master tastings in London, helping students prepare for exams with a lifetime of wine knowledge.
Daughter Jennie Hillman said in an interview: "My father's lifelong passion for wine stemmed from his sincere admiration for the wine industry. He has always been curious about the winemaking process, and often laments that the combination of nature and man-made can transform ordinary grapes into complex and beautiful wines, which is as admirable as magic! ”
Life has an end, but the spirit of love lives on, condensed into essence, influencing future generations and inspiring future generations.