Longtime Gazette columnist Malcolm Anderson was 'critical and cautious wine author'

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Malcolm Anderson, a longtime Montreal Gazette wine columnist recognized to legions of readers for his informative writing and smart counsel, has died. He was 87.

“Malcolm was a critical and cautious wine author who readers actually trusted to make worthwhile suggestions,” mentioned former Gazette meals editor Julian Armstrong.

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“In individual, he represented class of the old-fashioned. He had a captivating sense of humour, too, which enlivened stodgy wine-tasting occasions.”

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Anderson, who died Aug. 1, is survived by two sons, Fraser and Richie, and a sister in England, Marney Haigh. He moved in 2020 from Montreal to a retirement residence in Port Credit score, Ont., the place Fraser lives. As his well being declined following a analysis of vascular dementia, his sons moved him to a long-term care facility close to Ottawa in Stittsville, the place Richie lives.

Changing into a wine author was a second profession for Anderson, who labored for a few years on the Financial institution of Montreal in laptop system improvement. The transfer represented each “a profession change and a life-style change,” mentioned Fraser. “I feel he wanted to do one thing extra artistic.”

Anderson, who was born in Yorkshire, England in 1936 and was a boy through the Second World Struggle, labored briefly in a coal mine earlier than coming into army service (conscription was in place in the UK from 1939 to 1960) and being deployed to nations together with Libya and Cyprus. He was discharged after two years as a corporal.

He studied early computing methods and enterprise administration. In 1966, he secured a place in Montreal with plane producer Canadair and moved to Canada along with his younger household.

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By the early Nineteen Eighties, Anderson had grow to be taken with wine and was concerned with the Opimian Society, a Canadian wine membership. The preferred column within the membership’s journal, Wine Tidings, was Tasting Notes. Every was based mostly on a theme — say, cabernet sauvignon from all over the world — and 10 to 12 wines reflecting the theme had been tasted blind by a panel and scored. The column, written by a good friend of Anderson, a wine-import supervisor named David Campbell, included the tasting notes and scores.

As Anderson recalled in a column, in 1984 Campbell requested him to take over Tasting Notes as a result of Campbell was too busy. Anderson declined, saying he wasn’t educated sufficient. However he agreed when Campbell requested him to affix the wine-tasting panel.

Campbell missed the panel’s subsequent gathering, saying his automobile had slid off the highway right into a snowbank. Anderson stepped in — and the primary of 14 years’ price of Tasting Notes columns appeared underneath his byline. By no means totally satisfied concerning the snowbank, Anderson would later check with Campbell in a Gazette column as “the one that tricked me into changing into a wine author.”

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Quickly after, Anderson and a gaggle of different wine lovers began their very own tasting group. Wayne Grigsby, who was the Gazette’s wine columnist on the time, joined. He was additionally pursuing a profession writing for tv, and this finally led him to depart Montreal — and quit the wine column.

In passing the torch to Anderson in 1992, Grigsby wrote: “Malcolm’s been writing about and instructing wine for a few years, leavening even the deadliest of tastings with a puckish sense of humour. He’s a type of uncommon wine writers who takes the wine critically, not himself.”

Anderson would write greater than 800 columns in a tenure that lasted greater than 15 years, till he retired in 2007. He was a beneficiant author, intent on advising his readers nicely, however by no means snobbish or patronizing.

He labored onerous at it. “He actually would sweat particulars,” Fraser recalled. “He was writing for everyone. He was all the time that manner: he was not a snob.”

Anderson’s work was acknowledged in 2007 when he was named a chevalier within the Ordre du mérite agricole, bestowed by the French Republic for his “exceptional contribution to the repute of French wines and merchandise in Canada.”

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In on-line expressions of condolence, neighbours in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, the place Anderson had owned a house for years, described him as an excellent good friend. One couple, recalling him advising them about their backyard and serving to with a basis for a yard shed, referred to as him “such an exquisite, giving and entertaining man.”

He was additionally a proficient artist and craftsman, whose favorite mediums had been wooden and soapstone. And he was an enormous sports activities fan. “My dad and I’d speak hockey, soccer, System One, English soccer, tennis and extra virtually each time we spoke,” mentioned Fraser.

Anderson additionally performed many sports activities all through his life, significantly cricket and soccer, and cycled with pals into his 80s. “He was all the time up for no matter was instructed or happening on the time,” mentioned Fraser.

In a single 2007 column, Anderson described work journeys to wine-producing nations. Though they may land him again at his lodge at midnight “exhausted and with purple tooth” after 16-hour days, “I’m fortunate to be a wine author, to drink wine and journey to nations the place it’s produced, normally in essentially the most lovely locations,” he wrote.

“The topic is absorbing and I get to fulfill essentially the most charming and fascinating folks. There’s constant and great change on a regular basis: new vintages, new winemakers and new wines. And no, I wouldn’t change my job for yours, whoever you’re.”

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