Here are some suggestions to help you become better acquainted with the wines of America’s Golden State. If so, you will want to check out Slurp’s fantastic choice of Californian gems that include pale pink fruity rosés, deeply concentrated jammy Zinfandels, classy Chardonnays and award-winning Cabernet Sauvignons. Hopefully, this blog has piqued your interest in Californian wines. (Although you might want to bear in mind that Steven Spurrier stated that the film barely contained a true word!) Alternatively, the 2008 film ‘Bottle Shock’ depicts a semi-fictionalised account of the event, which stars Alan Rickman. You can discover more about the legendary wine contest and its far-reaching effects in George Tabor’s book ‘The Judgement of Paris,’ published in 2006. So next time you are sipping on that succulent Aussie Shiraz or a velvety Argentinian Malbec, consider that the Judgement of Paris may well have played a part in helping bring that wine to your table. In the aftermath of the tasting, wineries started popping up in countries including Argentina, Chile and Australia. The Judgement of Paris not only opened the doors for Napa Valley and Californian wines to enter the world stage but it also shifted perceptions about other New World wine making regions. The winning wines, a white Château Montelena 1973 Chardonnay and a red Stag’s Leap 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon, are honoured today at Washington DC’s Smithsonian Museum of American History in an exhibition of “101 Objects That Made America.” These historic bottles join an impressive list of artefacts alongside Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone and Neil Armstong’s spacesuit. This controversial contest was an absolute game changer for Californian wines, giving the region’s wine industry the vote of confidence it needed and fuelling its growth in the decades that followed. Unsurprisingly, the French wine establishment snubbed Steven Spurrier, who spoke of being physically thrown out of a prestigious Burgundy winery where he was once a valued customer, for having caused such an insult. There were also calls for other members of the panel to resign from their jobs. One of the judges asked for her tasting notes to be returned after the results were announced, on the basis that the event had been rigged. Instead, George Taber’s news brief caused enormous waves throughout the wine industry and its effects can still be felt to this day. However, without his four-paragraph recap, published a week later in Time Magazine, this momentous occasion would have faded into obscurity. In fact, the tasting was deemed to be such a foregone conclusion that only one journalist, George Taber, bothered to show up. He had simply wanted to use the event to gain some publicity for his Paris wine shop and to promote what he believed was the marked improvement in the quality of Californian wine. In contrast, French wine was considered unparalleled in terms of excellence.Įven the organiser of the event, the esteemed Steven Spurrier (who sadly passed away earlier this year), hadn’t expected the Californian underdogs to succeed. They were virtually unaware of the fine Cabernet Sauvignons and Chardonnays being produced in Northern California. Prior to this, Californian wines were not on the radar of European wine drinkers and Americans were typical consuming only fortified dessert wines. Top honours in the white and red categories both went to wines from California’s Napa Valley. Everyone expected the Californian wines to suffer a landslide defeat but instead they achieved the unthinkable. What followed has since become known as ‘The Judgement of Paris’ and ranks as one of the greatest underdog stories in the wine world. A high-powered panel of nine French wine experts took their seats at a blind wine tasting in Paris where some of France’s finest wines, from the hallowed cellars of Bordeaux and Burgundy, were pitted against relatively unknown Californian offerings. 45 years ago – on – wine history was made.
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