The man responsible for awarding the coveted Holiday Magazine
Restaurant awards has been a wine writer for more than 65 years. He has
also been a retailer, an artist, an actor, a restaurateur and even a
flight instructor, during World War II. He is also a Buddhist monk.
Robert Lawrence Balzer has always been surrounded by Hollywood
celebrities and in 1978 he teamed with producer Duke Goldstone and
director - writer Dennis F. Stevens to produce a number of wine
programs and commercials featuring the leading wineries of France and
California.
As of this writing he has a daily radio program on K-Mozart (105.1 FM
in Los Angeles) and is still leading wine programs on cruise ships.
Robert Lawrence Balzer was also the first serious writer-journalist in
America. His love affair with wine began with Repeal, about the time he
graduated Stanford and joined Balzer's, the family gourmet market on
Larchmont Boulevard, just south of Paramount Studios, not far from the
heart of Hollywood and mere miles from Beverly Hills. Customers
included Cecil DeMille, Alfred Hitchcock, Ingrid Bergman, and Marlon
Brando.
In 1936, at the age of 24, Robert Lawrence was put in charge of the
market's wine department. At the time, he knew nothing about wine, but
soon learned. California wines were beginning to find their way onto
retail shelves, after Prohibition's 13-year dry spell.
Balzer put out a customer newsletter praising the wines stocked on the
shelves of the Larchmont store; Almaden, Inglenook, and Paul Mason.
Will Rogers Jr., a classmate at Stanford, was intrigued by Balzer's
writing and in 1937 asked him to write a wine column for his newspaper,
the Beverly Hills Citizen.
After writing the first of his 11 books on wine, Robert Lawrence began
branching out. He started writing for Travel Holiday magazine, which
published his articles for more than two decades and until recently
Balzer was the person responsible for granting the coveted Holiday
Magazine Restaurant awards. In 1964, he began writing a weekly column
for the Los Angles Times Magazine. A few years later, he launched
Robert Lawrence Balzer's Private Guide to Food and Wine, quite likely
the first wine newsletter in America.
Robert Lawrence also has a spiritual side. Since the early `50s he has
studied Buddhism, at one time at a temple in Cambodia where he was
ordained a teaching monk. Indeed, teaching may be his greatest passion.
Over the years winemakers have made regular pilgrimages to speak to
Balzer's classes, which have developed an almost cult like following
among students.
At his annual birthday parties, those lucky enough to be invited mingle
with owners of the world's greatest wineries, who fly to Southern
California, and the City of Tustin, for the event.
