Paris Tasting Notes

There have been a lot of articles, and at least one book, written about the famous Paris Wine Tasting of 1976, better known as the Judgment of Paris. The desire for a better understanding of that day has occupied a place in the American wine psyche ever since. As the wine culture in California has developed to a lifestyle choice, it has significantly increased the thirst for more information. This has brought us to the eve of the release of two full length Hollywood movies based on the events that lead to that momentous day 32 years ago. The first, Bottle Shock,  was previewed recently at the Sundance Film Festival. The second, The Judgment in Paris, is in the production stage. There is a lot of controversy in the wine world over the very different accounts of the events that that these two films present. It can be certain that these will be fanciful versions of what really happened to give the films universal appeal and may, or may not, accurately reflect the events. They will almost certainly be embellished in one way or another, and that is to be expected of a movie meant to entertain.

As these movies are preparing to make their way to theatres across the country it seems to be a good time to revisit this turning point for Californian wine and the effects it has had on wine regions across the state. The Judgment in Paris has often been credited with bringing not only Napa, or even California, but indeed the New World, wine industry out of the background and thrusting them onto the world stage. It put the wine industry on notice that there were other regions of the world that could create great wine outside of the older, established regions of Europe.

The tasting was set up by a British wine merchant living in Paris, Steven Spurrier. Spurrier had become impressed with the quality of wines he had seen coming out of Napa for some time. He decided  to test how well they would do against French wines using French judges. He was convinced the Napa wines would lose, but thought they would surprise a few judges with their overall quality. No one involved thought for one minute that an elite panel of French judges could possibly misidentify wines from their homeland and rank a California wine as number one. But that is exactly what happened.

The white wines were tasted first. When the scores for the first wines were tallied, and it became obvious that three of the top four wines were from California, the French judges, and in fact Spurrier himself, were shocked. The humiliation of having an American Chardonnay beat the best that Burgundy had to offer was unbearable and couldn’t be possible.

Spurrier and the judges were determined that this mistake would not be repeated for the red Bordeaux wines. They continued their arrogant comments throughout the tasting. Sadly for them, several of their worst remarks were directed to what they thought were western wines, but were actually French wines. Even worse for the French was that a reporter for Time Magazine, George Taber, was in the audience and was capturing all of this for the American public.

As the red wine portion of the tasting came to an end it became obvious that a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon had, in fact, finished first. Spurrier and the judges were dumbfounded. This couldn’t be happening. It is reported that several of the judges tried to retrieve their sheets, claiming they were tricked. For a French judge this was unbelievably destructive to their career and their personal life. The French consider their wines to be a part of their entire national identity, and their supremacy had not come into question. Rather than accept that they had actually been beaten, many in the industry, and in the press, blamed either the way the event was managed or the competency of the judges themselves. Spurrier himself was punished by the French wine industry, who banned him from major events for a period of one year.
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