Judgment of Paris: Judgment of Paris

What a great find, I had no idea this book existed. If you want the detailed story of how California wine exploded into international acclaim, this well-researched book belongs in your collection. I am so glad I found this and hope there is a copy in stock for everyone who wants this memorable archive of viticulture and enology history. And hey, I still love Bordeaux!

The actual Judgment of Paris - the blind tasting between California and French wines in Paris in 1976 - only occupies a few pages of this book. The first part is a fascinating story of the history of wine in California, and the history of how the wineries, and their wines, that were in the tasting came to be. The second part covers the fallout from the Judgment of Paris, and how it, in many ways, led to the global surge in production of fine wine. The Judgment of Paris shook French winemakers out of their complacency, as they themselves said toward the end of the book. A subtext that perhaps even the author may not have noticed was that the leading California winemakers did the same thing for California wines. The victors were not from Northern California - the owner and winemaker from Stags Leap was from Chicago, and Chateau Montelena was acquired by two Angelenos who hired a Croatian winemaker. The wine business of Napa and Sonoma was stuck in complacency of its own, focusing on low-quality jug wine to the extent that grapes were even grown at all. It took outsiders from the Midwest and Southern California to kickstart the wine industry in Northern California into its present state. If you are at all interested in wine, this is an interesting and very approachable book.

This is an exceptional book. George Taber was the only journalist at the famous 1976 Paris tasting and the person best positioned to tell its story. The story, however, is a fairly simple and straightforward one. Man arranges tasting of French and California wines; California wines win; the French are aghast. This was a small event with huge repercussions. Hence, Taber spends the bulk of the book detailing the background which led to the event and the results that followed it. In doing so he gives a panoramic, if selective, account of current practices in the French and new world wine industries and--in the strongest sections of the book--tells the personal stories of the individuals whose lives were intertwined with the event. With the latter he is providing, in effect, a history of several of the key players in the Napa wine industry: Andre Tchelistcheff, Mike Grgich, Warren Winiarski (my all-time favorite academic), Robert Mondavi, et al. Like all compelling stories this is a very personal one, the events all turning on individual experiences and individual decisions. Hence there is a beautiful 'reality' about it, a reality that continues today. When you visit some of these individuals' wineries you are still likely to see them there, behind their desks or in their cellars, doing their thing. They changed the world of wine and this is a crucial part of their story.

About the same time when the computer disk drive was being invented in the prune orchard valley south of San Jose, giving birth to an immense new industry that would bring untold wealth to Californians, less than one hundred miles north, among the vineyards of Napa Valley that were abandoned during Prohibition, another high technology was being born. Wine making. Unlike innovation in computer industry, where nothing existed before, wine industry was some 4000 years old and an unlikely place for new ideas. Yet, into this environment entered several young men with improbable Slavic names: Dimitri Tchelistcheff, Warren Winiarski, and Miljenko Grgich, and with even less probable winemaking expertise. While Silicon Valley, without any established competition was creating products with ease by thinking "out of the box", the vintners of Napa Valley, by thinking "out of the barrel" produced some fabulous wines. The secret eventually reached a wine merchant in Paris who organized a blind wine tasting of 12 best California wines and 8 best French wines. The only reporter attending was from TIME magazine, George Taber. At a risk of giving away the punch line, after the smoke has cleared in Paris ... the best red was made by Winiarski and the best white by Grgich. Everyone who visits Napa Valley, once or often, should read this book. It reads like a novel, yet it effortlessly teaches you enough to start your own vineyard and make your own wine.

Centered on a small, poorly attended (only one journalist present) wine tasting event in 1976-the famous Paris tasting organized by the English bon vivant and Paris wine retailer/writer Steven Spurrier-George Taber tells the whole story first-hand (he was the journalist present!). In the process of giving all the details of the wines, the jurors, and the scores, the book actually covers the universe of contemporary wine issues, from the winemakers, both French and Californian, to the issues of wine economics and globalization. Taber begins the story with fascinating mini-biographies of the winemakers and winery owners (such as Mike Grgich, Warren Winiarski, and Jim Barrett), discusses the trials and tribulations of making their first wines, outlines each of the competition wines (California and French) in interesting detail and context, then, after describing the competition itself, follows the discussion with the chronology of the press and public reaction from the U.S. and abroad (mostly French-they were pissed). Positing the shattering of French wine hegemony by this `momentous' wine event, he then points the reader to the subsequent enabling of the `Globalisation of Wine', and in the remainder of the book, takes a number of diversions that relate to this hotly discussed topic, including a chapter on six recent International Wine Stars, and others that give a (relatively) non-judgemental perspective on contemporary wine trends, wine economics, wine styles, and more wine personalities. Very enjoyable and well written, it's a must read for the wine enthusiast, and for anyone interested in a succinct summary of many (non-technical) contemporary wine issues.

This book should also be listed under business books --how to build a business. It could also be a case study about the danger of arrogance in business. Regarding building a business---what I enjoyed most was the entrepreneurial story of early stage businesses working to create great products and fighting to get their products distributed, known to their market channels and taken seriously by consumers. Many smart business people do everything right and never make it because they're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then they watch some dummy become a winner because of luck. Here the good guys also have a really big and unexpected bit of luck. This story is not about a high-tech company that created the next new thing. This is about an agricultural product that's been made for thousands of years. This is about how people who really love something can make an old thing new, exciting and great. It is said that if you build a better mouse trap the world will beat a path to your door. That's bull. If the world doesn't know about your new, new thing only grass will grow in that path to your door. The 1976 Paris tasting alerted the world to the quality of California wines and showed the path to the producers' doors. This book also tells how that tasting emboldened other regions of the world to invest in marketing their wines to the world. And the book mentions how Acker Merrall & Condit (full disclosure requires me to say it's my favorite NYC wine store) sold out of those California wines the day of Taber's Time Magazine story. In 1976 Acker was (and it still is) a store that devotes shelf space to unknown, but exceptional wine values. With this book's mention of Acker, as the early NYC retail distribution channel for California wines, a retailer has had its own bit of luck out of the story of the 1976 Paris tasting. Regarding arrogance in business--the French do not want to face it, but just as Japan now makes better cars and offers better service than the once great US manufacturers, the rest of the world's wine producers are increasing sales of their wines while French wine sales are declining. A few of the great French wines will continue to demand crazy prices because of limited production, snobishness and the madness of crowds, but the French are not sharing in the enormous increase in the world's sale and consumption of wine. 1976 was the bicentennial of our US revolution against the UK. Perhaps it is France that now needs a revolution against arrogance, but that's probably too much to expect from the people that created the word chauvinism.