The competition has so far been repeated three times with the original wines; the third and fourth only with the red wines. Finally, there was also a book about it, the US journalist George M. Taber published the 350-page work "Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionised Wine" in 2006. And last but not least, this material was even made into a film in 2008 under the title "Bottle Shock" with director Randall Miller; however, Spurrier was very dissatisfied with this due to what he considered to be partly fictitious details (see also a list of films on the subject of wine and viticulture under the keyword cinema and TV films).
Tasting team - 11 jurors
It was a competition of wines from France and California with ten red wines and ten white wines from renowned wineries. Spurrier's intention was to improve the poor image of American wines, but naturally expected a clear victory for the French. The eleven judges were renowned authorities and experienced wine critics who were beyond reproach. They were Pierre Brejoux (General Inspector AOC), Michel Dovaz (Wine Institute of France), Claude Dubois-Millot (Sales Director Gault Millau), Patricia Gallagher (Académie du Vin), Odette Kahn (1923-1982, editor of Revue du Vin de France), Raymond Oliver (Restaurant Le Grand Vefour), Steven Spurrier, Pierre Tari (Château Giscours), Christian Vanneque (sommelier), Aubert de Villaine (Domaine de la Romanée-Conti) and Jean-Claude Vrinat (Restaurant Taillevent).
Spurrier had also invited many reporters from well-known newspapers, but only the above-mentioned George M. Taber from US Time Magazine was the only one to attend. Hardly anyone doubted the outcome - namely that the French wines would clearly beat the Californian wines in the sense of "everyone knows that French wines are and always will be better than Californian wines" .
Surprising result
The surprise was all the greater. When the result was announced, there was incredulous amazement and awkward silence. Some jury members wanted the ballot paper back so that they could evaluate it again. Some refused to sign the result. Odette Kahn even accused Spurrier of manipulation and made very negative comments about the competition. In any case, the result shook the wine world and led to heated discussions. France in particular was shocked and refused to accept the "disgrace". The devastating result was initially hushed up and it was not until three months later that "Le Figaro" reported on the "ridiculous event that could not be taken seriously".
A serious evaluation was doubted, or the argument was used that French wines needed a longer period of maturation to develop. But the fact is that from then on, wine from the USA was taken seriously or at least judged differently. This was a decisive turning point in terms of the reputation of what until then had often been disparagingly labelled as Coca-Cola wines. It is no coincidence that just three years later, the Opus One joint venture was launched between winemaking legends Baron Philippe de Rothschild (1902-1988) and Robert Mondavi (1913-2008).
First competition - 1976 in Paris
The competition was organised according to the rules of a semi-blind tasting. The judges knew which wines were involved, but not which bottle or glass they were in. The evaluation was based on the 20-point system widely used in Europe. All the white wines were single-varietal Chardonnays. The Bordeaux-style red wines were (are) dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon. During the tasting, the judges were absolutely certain that they could distinguish the Old World from the New World by smell, which turned out to be wrong. The Chardonnay "clearly identified as Californian" with a "lack of flavour" turned out to be a Burgundian Bâtard-Montrachet. In the red wines, there were similar misidentifications with supposedly outstanding French wines, which then turned out to be Californian. In the white wine category, all eleven judges gave either Chateau Montelena or Chalone Vineyard (both California) the highest number of points. The result (average points in brackets for the red wines):
The white wines (Chardonnay) - 6 Californian, 4 French
- 1st CAL: Chateau Montelena 1973 - Napa Valley
- 2nd FRA: Domaine Roulot - Meursault Charmes 1973 - Côte de Beaune
- 3rd KAL: Chalone Vineyard 1974 - Chalone/Monterey County
- 4. KAL: Spring Mountain Vineyard 1973 - Napa Valley
- 5th FRA: Joseph Drouhin - Clos des Mouches 1973 - Côte de Beaune
- 6. KAL: Freemark Abbey Winery 1972 - Napa Valley
- 7th FRA: Ramonet-Prudhon - Bâtard-Montrachet 1973 - Côte de Beaune
- 8th FRA: Domaine Leflaive - Puligny-Montrachet Les Pucelles 1972 - Côte de Beaune
- 9th KAL: Veedercrest Vineyards 1972 - Santa Cruz County (winery no longer exists)
- 10th KAL: David Bruce Winery 1973 - Santa Cruz Mountains
The winemaker responsible for the winning Chateau Montelena winery, Mike Grgich, achieved a high level of recognition overnight. He soon founded his own winery in the Napa Valley in 1977.
The red wines (Cabernet Sauvignon dominated) - 6 Californian, 4 French
Spurrier took a pragmatic approach to calculating the final numbers per wine. He simply added up the individual figures and divided the totals by nine (his own score and that of Patricia Gallagher were not taken into account). The two economists Orley Ashenfelter and Richard E. Quandt (both professors at Princeton University in New Jersey) analysed the result again. They also took into account the gaps between the scores and thus arrived at a "statistically better and more valid" result. They calculated three groups, whereby the wines within the groups are statistically indistinguishable and can be regarded as equivalent, so to speak: 1 and 2, 3 to 9, and 10. The result for the red wines is shown above in brackets. This did not result in any significant changes, but at least the "French honour" has improved somewhat, as Château Montrose is now also at the top. In four cases, the difference is only one place, in four cases the number of places is even identical.
There is another important aspect to consider when comparing France (Europe) and California. California generally has a balanced climate, which means that the vines are exposed to very similar conditions every year during the vegetation cycle. Provided that the vinification process is the same, the quality of the wines is almost the same in each year. In contrast, there are relatively large fluctuations in Europe, especially in the colder wine-growing regions such as France (also Germany and Austria), so that a "good vintage" plays a much greater role.
One could now blame poor vintages for the "poor result" of French wines. However, it should be noted that three of the four red wines were from 1970 and one from 1971. The "Conseil Interprofessionel du Vin de Bordeaux" ranked the 1970 vintage among the "best four vintages of the last 45 years" and the 1971 vintage is described as "very good". In addition, the vintage quality was even analysed for the appellations from which the red wines originated: Pessac-Léognan, Pauillac, Saint-Estèphe and Saint-Julien. Here too, similar statements were made over the two years. A "poor vintage" was therefore ruled out as an argument.
Second competition - 1978 in San Francisco
In January 1978, 20 months after the Paris tasting, a second competition was held in San Francisco. The main aim was to test the assumption made by the critics that the French wines would develop better than the Californian wines. Spurrier flew in from Paris to take part in the evaluation, which was held at the Vintners Club. The tasting teams consisted of 99 and 98 professional judges respectively. Although there were some changes in the ranking, the Californian victory was once again unshakeable. Three Californian wines came out on top in both the white and red wine categories - a clear result in favour of California (the place from the first competition in 1976 is shown in brackets):
White wines
Compared to the first competition, the wines from Domaine Roulot, Joseph Drouhin and Ramonet-Prudhon achieved a lower ranking:
Red wines
Compared to the first competition, the wines from Château Montrose, Château Haut-Brion and Château Leoville Las Cases achieved a lower ranking:
Third competition - 1986 in New York
Two competitions with different tasting teams were organised in 1986 to mark the 10th anniversary of the competition. As it was rightly assumed that the white wines had already passed their peak, only the red wines were tasted. One competition was organised by Wine Spectator magazine in New York, in which five Californians came out on top. The second competition was organised by the French Culinary Institute, also in New York, with Steven Spurrier providing support. Here, two Californians came out on top (1976 in brackets):
Wine Spectator
Six judges tasted all ten wines:
French Culinary Institute
Eight judges tasted nine wines, Freemark Abbey Winery was missing:
Fourth competition - 2006 in Napa and London
Finally, the 30th anniversary of this memorable competition was celebrated on 24 May 2006. The fourth and final competition was once again organised by Steven Spurrier, with two tasting teams active on both sides of the Atlantic in Napa and London. In London, Michael Broadbent, Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson took part. The clear result once again underpinned the previous results. The first five places were taken by Californian wines, with the "Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello" coming top in both tasting teams (the place of the first competition in 1976 is shown in brackets):
Summary
The results clearly underline the fact that wine evaluations generally have no scientific validity, because otherwise the results would have to be at best identical or at least very similar. If the competition were to be repeated the next day with the same judges and the same wines, the results would not be completely different, but would most likely be slightly different, and in some cases the ranking would be different. However, this does not change the fact that professional tastings are judged according to objective criteria and that the differences in evaluation are relatively small when tastings are repeated. However, this only applies on condition that the tasting is carried out by experienced and professional judges. See also under wine evaluation, wine speech and wine events.
Wine bottles: WIKIPEDIA Judgment of Paris 1976, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
