The Judgment of Paris! 1976-2006

Several months ago I was listening to NPR's Marketplace Morning Report, a great show. They mentioned the 30th Anniversary of something called the "Judgement of Paris". Let me preface this story by saying I was NOT one of the jackasses calling French fries "freedom fries" during the invasion of Iraq, but I did experience a little "American" pride as I learned more about this competition:

The "Judgment of Paris" was a wine competition in 1976 organized by Steven Spurrier, a British wine merchant, in which French judges did blind tasting of top-quality chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon wines from France and California. As you may know the French are very passionate and proud of their wine, which made the French judges faces as red as their Mouton Rothschild when the results were unveiled. The results revealed the California wines rated best in each category, leaving many of the French judges thinking the competition was rigged! According to Wikipedia several judges tried to get their voting cards back. I imagine a judge crumpling up his card, chewing and swallowing to get rid of the evidence...

The French insisted that age is what really made their wines stand out, so the competition was repeated 10 years later in 1986 with the same wines. California came out on top again. 2006 rolls around and another tasting, again California gets top billing. As The Times reported "Despite the French tasters, many of whom had taken part in the original tasting, 'expecting the downfall' of the American vineyards, they had to admit that the harmony of the Californian Cabernets had beaten them again. Judges on both continents gave top honours to a 1971 Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet. Four Californian reds occupied the next placings before the highest-ranked Bordeaux, a 1970 Château Mouton-Rothschild, came in at sixth".

Perhaps if I fall backwards into money I can do a similar tasting with a group of friends... I wonder what palate would say? In the end we really do owe the French. They gave us the Statue of Liberty, but also many of the vines growing in California today were grafted from French vines. We're not unlike the Japanese of the 80's, they took our technology and made it better, we took French bordeaux and did the same. Merci!

Cheers!