About Michael Broadbent
John Michael Broadbent, MW, was a British wine critic, writer and auctioneer in a capacity as a Master of Wine. He was an authority on wine tasting and old wines. In 1952, at the age of twenty-five, Broadbent entered the wine trade first with Layton's, then with the West End wine merchants, Saccone & Speed, and from 1955 with Harvey's of Bristol. Broadbent awarded a wine up to five stars, a system unlike the numerical score of the American wine critic Robert Parker. Journalist Harry Eyres, who worked as a junior expert at Christie's, wrote that Broadbent "created a small niche of glamour for himself as a jet-setting wine celebrity, while everybody else in the office toiled in near Dickensian conditions". As a wine writer, Broadbent was noted for publications of his records from a life of tasting wine.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.