Hugh Johnson | |
|---|---|
 Hugh Johnson in 2003 | |
| Born | Hugh Eric Allan Johnson (1939-03-10)10 March 1939 (age 86) London, England |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Subject | Wine, Gardening |
| Website | |
| tradsdiary | |
Hugh Eric Allan JohnsonOBE[1] (born 10 March 1939, inLondon) is an English journalist, author, editor, and expert on wine. He is considered the world's best-selling wine writer.[2] A wine he tasted in 1964, a 1540Steinwein from theGerman vineyardWürzburger Stein, is considered one of the oldest to have ever been tasted.[3][4]
He is also a keen gardener, who has written books and columns on gardening for many years.
He was born the son of Guy F. Johnson CBE and Grace Kittel, educated atRugby School and readEnglish atKing's College, Cambridge.[5]
Johnson became a member of theCambridge University Wine and Food Society while an undergraduate in the 1950s. On describing his introduction to wine-tasting Johnson has recalled:
...my room-mate Adrian Cowell, committee member of theUniversity Wine & Food Society came in after dinner with two glasses and said, "Come on, Hugh, are they the same? Or different?" Both were, I am sure, red Burgundy, but one was magic and one was ordinary. This caught my imagination. It was myDamascene moment.[2][6]
Johnson has been writing about wine since 1960, was taken on as a feature writer forCondé Nast Publications upon graduation, and started work onVogue andHouse & Garden, becoming in 1962 editor ofWine & Food and in the same year wine correspondent ofThe Sunday Times, of which in 1967 he became Travel Editor. From 1968 to 1970 he editedQueen magazine in succession toJocelyn Stevens.[7]
He has published a wide array of books, starting with the publication ofWine in 1966.The World Atlas of Wine (1971) was considered the first serious attempt to map the world's wine regions, described by the director of theINAO as "a major event in wine literature".
Since its launch in 1973 Johnson has been President of the Sunday Times Wine Club, part of Laithwaites, now the world's largest mail-order wine merchant. From 1986 to 2001 he was a Director of the Bordeaux First GrowthChateau Latour and in 1990 was a co-founder of the Royal Tokaji Wine Company in an attempt to rebuild the founderingTokaji industry after Communism. In 1986 he started the Hugh Johnson Collection, which sold (until 2010) wine glasses and other artefacts related to wine, mainly in the Far East, with a shop inSt James's Street, London.
His bookVintage: The Story of Wine, an authoritative 500-page compendium, was first published in 1989 by Octopus, and re-edited in 2004 as a fully illustrated edition published by Mitchell Beazley. It also was made into a 13-part TV series for Channel 4 and WGBH in Boston, first airing in 1989. Since 1977 he has compiled his annualPocket Wine Book, selling many million copies in up to 14 languages.
In 1973 Johnson wroteThe International Book of Trees. In 1975 he became Editorial Director of the journal of theRoyal Horticultural Society (The Garden) and its columnist, "Tradescant". "Trad's Diary", now in its 44th year, appears online and inHortus magazine. In 1979 he publishedThe Principles of Gardening and in 2010 a new rewritten edition ofTrees. "Trad's Diary" has been anthologised three times, asHugh Johnson on Gardening (1993),Hugh Johnson in the Garden (2009) andSitting in the Shade (2021).
He was selectedDecanter Man of the Year in 1995, and was promoted Officer in the French Order Nationale du Mérite in 2004 and Officer of theOrder of the British Empire (OBE) in 2007 "for services to wine-making and horticulture". He was awarded theVeitch Memorial Medal of the Royal Horticultural Society in 2000.[5]
Johnson is known as one of the wine world's most vocal opponents to awarding numerical scores to wine. In the autobiographyA Life Uncorked, he also expressed regret over the wine criticRobert Parker's influence on the world of wine, which has in his view moved winemaking in many regions towards a more uniform, bigger and richer style.[7] In 2005 Johnson stated, "Imperial hegemony lives in Washington and the dictator of taste in Baltimore".[a][8]
a. ^ Robert Parker resides in Monkton, a small town in Baltimore County, Maryland.
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