Michel Bettane

Michel was born on March 14, 1952 in Bethesda, Maryland, into a French family whose father worked at the French Embassy in Washington. After studying literature at the Lycée Louis le Grand, then at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and the Sorbonne, Michel was awarded the agrégation de lettres classiques in 1975, and taught until 1991.

From 1978, he helped Steven Spurrier with his tasting school. Then, in 1981, he joined Chantal Lecouty, who had just bought the Revue du Vin de France. He rebuilt it with her, and from 1989, in collaboration with Thierry Desseauve, until 2004. In the meantime, he was elected member of the Académie Internationale du Vin and then of the Académie du Vin de France.

Since 2004, Michel has been co-director with Thierry Desseauve of the firm Bettane et Desseauve, which produces the magazine En Magnum, an annual guide to the best wines published by Flammarion, and organizes the Grand Tasting tasting salons in France, Japan and China.