Judgment of Paris

JUDGMENT OF PARIS California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine GEORGE M. TABER SCRIBNER New YrHk London Toronto Sydn PART FOUR THE NEW WORLD OF WINE The Pans Tasting destroyed the myth of.French supremacy and marked dze democrati{ation ofthe wine world. It was a water shed in the histoCY o/wine. -ROBERT M. PARKER JR., 2001 CHAPTER TWENTY The Buzz Heard Round the World Wine is sunlight, held together by water. -GALILEO he June 7, 1976, issue of Time magazine hit newsstands in New T York City and a few other major metropolitan areas on Monday morning, May 31. The cover story was about a scandal involving the honor system at West Point. Back on page 58 in the Modern Living section was a modest story entitled "Judgment of Paris." The lead story of the sec tion was about a new theme park in Atlanta, and my article about the wine tasting filled out the last column. No photograph accompanied the Paris article, the normal sign of a significant story. In fact, the page it was on was overwhelmed by an ad for Armstrong tires. The last sentence of the first paragraph told it all: "Last week in Paris, at a formal wine tasting organized by Spurrier, the unthinkable happened: California defeated all Gaul." The day after the Time story appeared, something unusual was hap pening at Manhattan's Acker Merrall & Condit, America's oldest wine shop, then located on the Upper West Side on Broadway between West Eighty sixth and West Eighty-seventh streets. Acker was one of the few liquor stores in the city at the time to carry a good selection ofquality California wines. Owner Michael Kapon had been introduced to them in 1972, when a friend raved to him about the 1969 Robert Mandavi Cabernet Sauvignan. Kapan tried the wine, liked it, and began carrying several Mandavi wines. The Mondavi Cabernet moved well at $4.99 a bottle, and Kapon always kept it in bins just under the displays ofhis top French wines such as Bur gundy's Romanee-Conti that sold for much more. His big sellers among California products, though, were stiU the GaUo and Almaden jug wines. Kapon sold five hundred to six hundred cases ofthose per momh, compared with only a few cases of premium Caljfornia wines. Acker Merrall & Condit carried both Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvi gnon from two of the e1evell Californja wineries that had taken part in the 21 4 THE NEW WORLD OF WINE THE BUZZ HEARD ROUND THE WORLD 21 5 Paris Tasting: Chateau Montelena and Freemark Abbey. The price for judges, to many consumers who cared what happened in France and had each: $5.99 a bottle. previously paid scant attention to California wine. At midmorning the store manager went to the back room where On June 9, Prial discussed the Chardonnay wines in the tasting. He Michael Kapon was working and told him that the supply of Chateau noted that in similar events in the U.S., "the latest only six months ago in Montelena and Freemark Abbey wines was running out. The manager had New York," California wines had outscored top French Chardonnays, but asked one customer why he was interested in those wines. The person told "champions of French wines" argued that the American tasters were biased him about the Time story. By noon Acker Merrall & Condit had sold out toward American wines and the French wines were perhaps damaged in ofthe five cases ofwines it had from the two California wineries at the Paris shipment. Since the judges in Paris were French and the California wines Tasting. had the disadvantage of travel, Prial asked, "~What can they say now?" The scene was repeated in countless wine stores around the country. One In his second article-this one on June 16--Prial dealt with the Caber New York City shop reportedly received four hundred calls asking about the net Sauvignon part of the event. This time he was more skeptical about the winning wines the day after the article appeared. Napa Valley folklore results, implying they may have just been a fluke. That was an explanation tells of a desperate man rushing into the Wine and Cheese Center in San that appeared in several American publications at about the same time. Francisco and imploring, "Have you got any Montelena?" The source for that view was probably Steven Spurrier, who was quoted in The appearance of the story in Time magazine was important for the an article in the Minneapolis Star saying, "You can't expect 10 people fumre impact ofthe Paris lasting. Ifno journalist had been there that day, the drinking 20 wines to come out with the same answers twice." Just after the tasting would have been like the tree falling in the forest that no one heard. event Spurrier appears to have become concerned, probably with some jus As Spurrier said later at the time ofthe twentieth anniversary ofthe event, "If tification, about the impact it was havi.ng and what that might mean for we hadn't had a reporter from Time, there would have been no fuss at all." his future as a wine merchant in Paris. Spurrier's early comments to Time had a readership of 20 million and talked directly to the American reporters dwelled on the randomness of blind tasting as if to play down middle class, the exact group that was becoming more interested in wine. what had happened. Gallagher was also unhappy that press stories, start It was those people who read the story, told their friends about it, and sud ing with the Time one, emphasized Franco-American wine competition, denly had a new respect for California wines. Had the news been reported rather than the discovery of new California wines, which had been their only in one of the new American wine newsletters or magazines, it might goal in staging the tasting. have attracted attention among wine connoisseurs, but would have been lit In his second article Prial also wrote: "Only the most nai"ve reader tle noted by the general public. would conclude anything other than that on a certain day a certain group If no one from the press had been present, it would have also been much of French wine specialists agreed that California turns out some fine easier for the French and others simply to deny or distort what had hap wines." He added that the variables in the tasting were too great and that pened. As it was, a whole mythology about the tasting grew up as people in it was unfair to compare the early-maturing Stag's Leap with Chateau both California and France embellished the event. In fact, my major Mouton Rothschild, which would reach its peak in perhaps twenty years. objective in writing this book was to set the record straight once and for all Nonetheless, Prial added, "The results were of course an enormous com about what transpired that day in Paris. Nearly three decades later, it is still pliment to little Stag's Leap Wine Cellars." constantly cited as the turning point in the development of California wine. Soon food-and-wine writers were doing their own stories about the The most influential wine writer at the time was Frank Prial of the New Paris Tasting in papers all across the country under headlines like "U.S. Tri York Times, who four years earlier had started a weekly column entitled umphant in French Tastings." For the Napa Valley's Weekly Calistogan the "Wine Talk," which appeared on Wednesdays. Prial took the unusual step news was front page, above the banner, and carried the headline" 'Kids from ofdevoting two columns in a row to the Paris event, which got the news out the Sticks' Place Firsr." Most of the stories lamented that the California to the public perhaps even more than the original Time story. At the time, wines were hard to find. The Seattle Times reported that Stag's Leap was sell New York City was the major wine-consunling market in the U.S., and his ing for $7.20 "but little is left." The New York Times noted that the winning articles brought home the importance of this event in Paris, with French red was unavailable in the New York City area. THE BUZZ HEARD ROUND THE WOR1.D 216 THE NEW WORLD OF WINE There was a lot of flag waving in much of the American coverage. A col * " * umn in the New Orleans Times-Picayune on June 16 headlined "California In France the first reaction was to blame the judges. Baron Philippe de Roth Wines Beat French Wines!" The new Wine Spectator newsletter noted the schild, whose Mouton Rothschild had placed second, phoned one of the event in its sixth issue in June under the headline "California Wines Top judges and asked haughtily, "What are you doing to my wines? It took me French." The Los AngeLes Times headline: "Three Cheers for the Red, forty years to become classified as a First Growth!" White and Cru." Claude Terrail, the owner of La Tour d'Argent, called his sommelier Since reporters were writing about the event on the basis of secondhand Christian Vanneque on the carpet when the restaurant's clipping service knowledge, some resorted to descriptions that are best classified as fiction. began sending dozens of articles from around the world about the Spurrier Such stories helped spread a myriad of myths that have built up about the tasting that noted Vanneque's role as a judge.

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