My Article: Thanks to a Great Bordeaux Wine Merchant

Daniel Lawton

I was thinking on the plane of Bordeaux wine merchant Daniel Lawton, who died last weekend at 85 years of age. He was one of Bordeaux’s last old school wine merchants, and he taught me a lot at an early stage of my career from 1985 to 1987. He ran Tastet-Lawton, one of the original great négociant firms of Bordeaux.

I still remember arriving at Château Prieuré-Lichine on the summer of 1983 during VinExpo, where Daniel was in the cellar tasting with a bunch of his vintner friends such as Alexis Lichine, Hugh Lawton, Anthony Barton and Bruno Prats. They were tasting the legendary 1982 from barrel. 

I was only 25 years old. I had no idea about tasting from barrel. Yet Daniel and his friend couldn’t have been nicer to explain to me how to taste and why they thought 1982 was exceptional.

“We have to teach this young American what great Bordeaux is all about,” said Alexis Lichine, the owner of Prieuré-Lichine, one of the great wine writers of the era and an incredible bon vivant who later became a mentor. Daniel, Alexis and the rest of them were really upset about a negative article in The New York Times dismissing the 1982 vintage.

Tasting the barrel samples and later drinking some at a lunch with Daniel, Alexis and the rest was an unforgettable experience. Just about every time I still taste a great bottle of ripe, round and balanced 1982 Bordeaux I remember that moment of tasting them from barrel and sharing glasses together with some of the greatest legends of Bordeaux.

But that was just the beginning with Daniel. When I moved to Paris in 1985 as a full-time editor with the Wine Spectator covering Europe, Daniel was one of the first people I called for help and insight into one of the great winemaking regions of the world. I travelled to Bordeaux a number of times and Daniel took me to all the top names of the Médoc and Graves. We visited the cellars and tasted from various barrels at each château. We visited dozens of cellars together.

“Taste for the finish of the wine,” he would say. “It’s not about the impression at the front of your mouth. It’s about the finish and how long it lasts. It’s also about the harmony and balance of the wine.”

To this day, I use this as my mantra for tasting from barrel, no matter where I am. Great wine, young or old, is still all about balance and harmony, and it was great wine men like Daniel Lawton who thankfully taught me that.

He was always a classy, elegant and subtle man just like the great wines he tasted and sold. He was part of an amazing lineage of Irishman who came to Bordeaux to join the wine trade in the 1700s. (My friend wine merchant Pierre Lawton, his nephew, is of the same family.) He also was a great sportsman, particularly at the Villa Primrose Tennis Club. I miss him already.