The Judgment of Paris

I'm taking you to Paris. The Paris of 1976. I have no idea what the city of love looked like back then, but I do know that Galeries Lafayette was already there. The department store first opened its doors in 1893. The patisserie La Durée – maker of the best macarons in the world – was even there already. Well, that, combined with the life of the seventies doesn't seem like a bad setting at all to me.

France vs. California, the battle

Anyway, we're not here for Lafayette or macarons, we're here for wine. On May 24, 1976, a wine tasting took place at the InterContinental Hotel, just off the Champs-Élysées, organized by British wine merchant Steven Spurrier. With Memorial Day in mind, he thought it would be fun to pit the best French wines against those of California. Blind, of course—no one would know what's in the glass.

Stop the presses and listen to this insane podcast about The Judgment of Paris with the organizer, Steven Spurrier.

Spurrier had invited top brass from the French wine world. The journalists from the major newspapers, Le Figaro and Le Monde, showed no interest in Californian wines and bypassed the tasting. I wonder if they ever regretted it. I find it a rather unusual decision to turn down the tasting of these wines anyway. Even if you (think you) don't care for Californian wines, you're allowed to taste Mouton-Rothschild, Montrose, and Haut-Brion.

Just act normal and make sure you're there. But that's how it was forty years ago. Others, including Aubert de Villaine of DRC , Christian Vanneque of restaurant Tour d'Argent, and George Taber of TIME Magazine understood this well. A total of nine winemakers were at the tasting table.

The tasting table – red wines

🇺🇸 California Cabernet Sauvignon

• 🍇 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars – Vintage 1973

• 🍇 Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello – Vintage 1971

• 🍇 Heitz Wine Cellars Martha's Vineyard – Vintage 1970

• 🍇 Clos Du Val Winery – Vintage 1972

• 🍇 Mayacamas Vineyards – Vintage 1971

• 🍇 Freemark Abbey Winery – (year not stated)

🇫🇷 Bordeaux

• 🍷 Château Mouton-Rothschild – Vintage 1970

• 🍷 Château Montrose – Vintage 1970

• 🍷 Château Haut-Brion – Vintage 1970

• 🍷 Château Léoville Las Cases – Vintage 1971

The tasting table – white wines

🇺🇸 California Chardonnay

• 🍇 Chateau Montelena – Vintage 1973

• 🍇 Chalone Vineyard – Vintage 1974

• 🍇 Spring Mountain Vineyard – Vintage 1973

• 🍇 Freemark Abbey Winery – Vintage 1972

• 🍇 Veedercrest Vineyards – Vintage 1972

• 🍇 David Bruce Winery – Vintage 1973

🇫🇷 Burgundy

• 🍷 Meursault Charmes Roulot – Vintage 1973

• 🍷 Beaune Clos des Mouches Joseph Drouhin – Vintage 1973

• 🍷 Bâtard-Montrachet Ramonet-Prudhon – Vintage 1973

• 🍷 Puligny-Montrachet Les Pucelles Domaine Leflaive – Vintage 1972

Judgment of Paris

The tasters each had to rate the wines on a 20-point scale. Guess what happened? The Californian wines won out over the French. The Chardonnay from Chateau Montelena (Calistoga) emerged victorious, scoring better than the Chardonnays from Meursault (Les Charmes) and Puligny-Montrachet (Les Pucelles). Hatsa. Among the red wines, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars from Napa Valley took the crown, beating Chateau Mouton-Rothschild from Bordeaux by just 0.05. Epic.

You can probably imagine that panic broke out at the table. The only journalist, George Taber, didn't wait a second (well, it was still 1976, so he couldn't dedicate a tweet to it, unfortunately) and published the results in TIME Magazine. The New York Times got involved, and soon the story took on a life of its own, exaggerated and filled with juicy details. Check here more about the media hype that followed.

Beautiful stories

Great story, isn't it?! What would the wine world have been like if this hadn't happened? Would New World wines have captured our attention differently? Isn't it true that sometimes we also want to believe good stories just because they are good? You might not have expected this plot twist, but I wanted to mention it anyway.

Tim Atkin, a renowned British wine writer and Master of Wine, takes issue with His column * certainly doesn't mince words. The whole thing, the so-called Judgement of Paris, was a premeditated plan to put California wines on the map. Wine lovers are, after all, easily swayed by sweet talk.

In any case—whether it was sincere or not—the Judgment of Paris opened the gates of the New World. I can only applaud that.

Photography: Drinkmemag.com

*Interesting column that ends with a creepy bit of conspiracy theory.