The Judgment of Paris, Nineteen Seventy Six
Near St. Helena, California
Saint Helena sits at the center of a wine region whose modern fame can be traced to a single afternoon in Paris. On the twenty fourth of May, nineteen seventy six, a British wine merchant named Steven Spurrier staged a blind tasting to mark the American bicentennial. He set ten California wines against ten of the finest from France, and he recruited a panel of nine French experts, sommeliers, critics, and estate owners, to judge them without knowing which was which.
The French were expected to win easily. Instead, when the scores were tallied, a California wine topped the red category and another topped the whites. The winning red was a nineteen seventy three Cabernet Sauvignon from Stags Leap Wine Cellars, and the winning white a nineteen seventy three Chardonnay from Chateau Montelena, both from the Napa Valley.
Only one reporter had bothered to attend, George Taber of Time magazine, and his story stunned the wine world. The event became known as the Judgment of Paris. Overnight it shattered the belief that great wine could come only from France, and it sent investors and dreamers streaming into Napa.
The valley you are driving through owes much of its prestige to that upset half a century ago.
