Two weeks ago, wine merchant Stephen Spurrier and his partner Patricia Gastaud-Gallagher commemorated their famous “Judgment of Paris” by re-enacting the tasting with the original red wines, from the same vintages, in an event held simultaneously in London (at Berry Brothers & Rudd) and at Copia in Napa, CA. And again, California stunned the world by winning the competition: Ridge Vineyards’ 1971 Monte Bello Cabernet Sauvignon from the Santa Cruz Mountains took top honors in both cities, and the top red wine from the 1976 tasting, Stags Leap Wine Cellars 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon from the Napa Valley, took second place.
In all, the top five wines were from California, outperforming some of Bordeaux’s most prestigious wines, including Latour, Haut Brion, Montrose, and Mouton Rothschild. In doing so the California wines proved that not only can they rival France’s most fabled wines right out of the starting gate, but that they have longevity as well. Spurrier, talking by speakerphone from London to the crowd in Napa, sounded thrilled, if perhaps a bit surprised. “It’s absolutely wonderful that California wines have shown that they can age as well as Bordeaux wines,” he said.
No one in attendance–and I mean no one–expected this outcome. Between the two regions, California has the warmer climate; its vines then were much younger (some less than five years old!), and made by winemakers who had almost no experience. California wines were usually showier, more forward, and more expressive than French wines in their youth. But it was generally felt that the California wines would fade or fall apart much more quickly than a long-lived Bordeaux. Everyone expected the Bordeaux wines to sweep the competition as a result.
All of these wines were at least 35 years old, and Gastaud-Gallagher wasn’t certain any of the wines would show up. “I guess I was thinking, ‘Will this really be a celebration, or a bitter moment?'” she said. “But when we pulled the corks, we found the wines to be very much alive, and thought, ‘yes, this will be interesting; there may be surprises.'”
“What I was expecting today was the downfall of California,” said Christian Vannequé, a former sommelier who was the only judge in Napa present at the original event in Paris. “We told ourselves [in 1976] that yes, the California wines won because they were more mature, they were too open, and they couldn’t last. Today’s tasting showed that that was not true; the California wines aged gracefully. They won also the test of time.”
These thirty years have come to represent the blossoming of wine regions all over the world, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that none of this might have happened, or happened as quickly, without the Judgment of Paris. But the tasting was meant to be little more than a pleasant afternoon. That it got remembered at all, and so famously, is an act of extreme good fortune.
In 1971, Stephen Spurrier was a young Englishman whose interest in wine led to the purchase, that year, of a small wine shop called Caves de la Madeleine in Paris. Within a few years, the Caves became a beehive of wine activity for members of the anglophone community in Paris. The atmosphere was free-spirited and egalitarian, largely devoid of the chauvinism that most French at the time showed toward wines not made in France. Within a few years Spurrier started a small wine school next door, and hired Patricia Gallagher to run it. In addition to French wines, they explored wines from America and Austria, even Chile, years and sometimes decades before those regions had found a world stage. One of their regular attendees was George M. Taber, a California native and reporter for Time magazine based in Paris.
In 1976, to celebrate the American Bicentennial, Spurrier and Gallagher decided to throw a blind tasting of French and American wines, and invited an esteemed group of French wine experts. It was held at the InterContinental Hotel near Place de la Concorde; the hotel’s chief concern was that they conclude by six p.m., when the room had to be reset for a wedding.
At the last minute Gastaud-Gallagher and Spurrier thought it might be a good idea to invite some press; none in the French press responded, however, and Gallagher turned to her student, George Taber, and asked him if he’d like to come.
There is a grainy photograph of Taber as he hovers among the judges’ tables. “The original tasting,” he said last week, “was an extremely informal affair, with lots of chatter”–so much, in fact, that Taber, who wasn’t tasting and knew the identity of the wines, started to notice that the French judges were mistaking California wines for French–and he knew he had a story. “My real a-ha moment,” he said, “was realizing half-way through the white wines that they were getting confused.” When Spurrier read the results aloud, the critics were stunned; some demanded that their scorecards be returned; others simply refused to believe him, maintaining that regardless of the results, French wines were superior.
Taber’s June article in Time proclaimed, “California defeated all Gaul,” and was read by millions; its impact was immediate and profound. French wines were considered the greatest in the world, a fact that was essentially conceded by nearly everyone with a critical sensibility–France had one of the oldest and grandest wine traditions, particularly in Bordeaux and Burgundy, fabled regions whose most heralded wines were tasted on that day. Before that day in 1976, no one thought to question that hegemony.
But nothing would be the same after the Judgment of Paris. Interest and sales of wine in California exploded, sparking a demand in the market that soon caught hold in the rest of the New World, including South America and Australia. France was no longer considered the world’s sole source for great wine. “The day after the Paris Tasting,” says Warren Winiarski of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, whose 1973 cabernet took top honors, “all that changed. We saw that great wine could be made in many countries.” The Paris tasting gave the world’s wine movement its biggest kick start.
Chances are slim that the recent tastings will have the same effect, particularly when one takes into account that back in 1976, most wines were made from fruit that isn’t nearly as ripe as that which is harvested today. All wines, California included, had more staying power.
In fact, the recent tastings included modern wines that seemed to prove the point. Peter Marks, M.W., who directs Copia’s wine program, curated four additional flights which included a number of younger wines, drawn from the same houses in Burgundy, Bordeaux, and California used in the original tasting, as well as a few newcomers. (Unlike the re-enactment, this crop of French and California wines did not compete against each other.) Again, Ridge Monte Bello, from the 2000 vintage, took top honors among California Cabernet-based wines, and Stag’s Leaps Wine Cellars’ 2001 “Cask 23” Cabernet bottling took second place.
In still another surprising development , the top California Chardonnay came not from Napa or Sonoma but from the Central Coast, Talley’s 2002 Rosemary’s Vineyard Chardonnay; followed by two bottlings from the Hyde Vineyard in Carneros; the Ramey 2002, and the Patz & Hall 2004.
The French wines, meanwhile, were magnificent; the top Burgundy was Domaine Leflaive’s beautifully finessed 2002 Puligny-Montrachet “Les Pucelles;” the top Bordeaux, the sinuous, elegant 2000 Chateau Margaux. To my mind the most exciting wines all afternoon came from Burgundy, nearly all from the incandescent 2002 vintage, with Leflaive at the lead.
Tasting the modern wines, there was little doubt as to which wines were French and which were Californian, with the latter being demonstrably riper, bigger, and packing more alcohol than their French counterparts. If this tasting occurs thirty years from now, the California wines aren’t likely to hold up; then again, the French may not either. I just hope I’m lucky enough to find out for myself.