David Peppercorn is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 Master of Wine

Master of Wine

Master of Wine is a qualification issued by The Institute of Masters of Wine in the United Kingdom...

, French wine

French wine

French wine is produced in several regions throughout France, in quantities between 50 and 60 million hectolitres per year, or 7–8 billion bottles. France has the world's second-largest total vineyard area, behind Spain, and is in the position of being the world's largest wine producer...

 importer and author, known for his books about the wine

Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

s of Bordeaux

Bordeaux wine

A Bordeaux wine is any wine produced in the Bordeaux region of France. Average vintages produce over 700 million bottles of Bordeaux wine, ranging from large quantities of everyday table wine, to some of the most expensive and prestigious wines in the world...

 and long experience in his field, having collected tasting notes

Wine tasting

Wine tasting is the sensory examination and evaluation of wine. While the practice of wine tasting is as ancient as its production, a more formalized methodology has slowly become established from the 14th century onwards...

 since the late 1950s. He is married to fellow MW and wine writer Serena Sutcliffe

Serena Sutcliffe

Serena Sutcliffe, Master of Wine, is the head of Sotheby's international wine department, as well as a prominent writer on wine. She is married to fellow Master of Wine, David Peppercorn...

. They were the first husband and wife team to both earn the qualification of Master of Wine. (Peter and Philippa Carr would later join them as the only two husband and wife MW teams.) Peppercorn's books include Bordeaux, The Wines of Bordeaux, The Simon & Schuster Pocket Guide to the Wines of Bordeaux, Mouton-Rothschild 1945, The Wine To End All Wars and Great Vineyards and Winemakers.

Writings and wine philosophy

Frank J. Prial

Frank J. Prial

Frank J. Prial, who graduated from Georgetown University in 1951, was the wine columnist for The New York Times for 25 years, writing the weekly "Wine Talk" column since 1972 until his retirement in 2005....

, wine columnist for The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, called Peppercorn "one of England's foremost authorities on Bordeaux". He is a noted critic of the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855

Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855

The Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855 resulted from the 1855 Exposition Universelle de Paris, when Emperor Napoleon III requested a classification system for France's best Bordeaux wines which were to be on display for visitors from around the world...

 and the vested interest in the classifications. In his writings on Bordeaux wine estates, Peppercorn regularly focuses on estates that were excluded from the 1855 classification, and maintains that omitted estate Château La Mission Haut-Brion

Château La Mission Haut-Brion

Château la Mission Haut-Brion is a Bordeaux wine from the Pessac-Léognan appellation, classed among the Grand Crus in the Graves classification of 1953...

's consistent performance over the last century justifies its classification as a Premier Cru.

Pétrus imperial bottle controversy

In late 1990s, Peppercorn and his wife created controversy when they questioned the authenticity of imperial (6 liter

Litér

- External links :*...

) bottles

Wine bottle

A wine bottle is a bottle used for holding wine, generally made of glass. Some wines are fermented in the bottle, others are bottled only after fermentation. They come in a large variety of sizes, several named for Biblical kings and other figures. The standard bottle contains 750 ml,...

 of Château Pétrus

Château Pétrus

Pétrus is a Bordeaux wine estate located in the Pomerol appellation near its eastern border to Saint-Émilion. An estate of limited size, it produces a limited production red wine almost entirely from Merlot grapes, on occasion with small amounts of Cabernet Franc, and produces no second wine...

 from the 1921, 1924, 1926, 1928 and 1934 vintage

Vintage

Vintage, in wine-making, is the process of picking grapes and creating the finished product . A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown and harvested in a single specified year. In certain wines, it can denote quality, as in Port wine, where Port houses make and...

s that were served at collectors' wine tasting events in 1989 and 1990. The tastings were conducted from the collection of Hardy Rodenstock

Hardy Rodenstock

Hardy Rodenstock is a former publisher and manager of pop and Schlager music in Germany and is a prominent wine collector, connoisseur and trader, with a special interest in old and rare wines...

, a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 wine collector who later was embroiled in a counterfeit wine

Wine fraud

Wine fraud is a form of fraud in which wines are sold to a customer illicitly, usually having the customer spend more money than the product is worth, or causing sickness due to harmful chemicals being mixed into the wine...

 controversy involving a bottle reported belonging to Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

. While Peppercorn's and Sutcliffe's concerns were never proven, and were disputed by Rodenstock, the current manager of Château Pétrus, Christian Moueix

Christian Moueix

Christian Moueix is a French winemaker and the president of the négociant house Établissements Jean-Pierre Moueix in Libourne, overseeing production in several estates in Saint-Émilion and Pomerol including Château Pétrus and Château Trotanoy...

, confirmed that the estate has no records of producing imperials during those vintages.