The wine world story about the historic wine competition between California and France, now known as the 1976 Judgment of Paris, is celebrated by many wine enthusiasts. And wine movie buffs will certainty remember “Bottle Shock” (2008), which dramatized the role of Steven Spurrier in staging this industry-changing showdown and created an indelible portrait of the goings-on at Chateau Montelena in Napa Valley.

As Spurrier’s New York Times obituary summarized, he comes across as “the instigator”: an enterprising Englishman who not only opened a Paris wine shop but also thought he could teach the French about wine with his Academie du Vin wine school.

What’s Commonly Known about the Blind Tasting

The event at the Intercontinental Hotel was a blind tasting of 10 white and 10 red wines. All the judges were French and supremely qualified in wine tasting. Competitors included six California whites and four Bourgogne whites, all made from Chardonnay; there six California Cabernet Sauvignon and four Bordeaux red blends. Napa Valley was truly on the line.

“California Wine Did Not Exist”

As the Times reiterates, before the competition, “the judges were thoroughly convinced that California wines were inferior.” The finest French wines would win, but the panel tasted all the wines blind. One reporter later asked Spurrier how these foreign wines were viewed at the time. “California wine was not viewed,” he replied. “California wine did not exist.”

As everyone who has heard of “The Judgment” or seen “Bottle Shock” knows, shockingly indeed, two Napa Valley wines (Stag’s Leap and Montelena) won the most points in both the red and white categories, respectively. Thanks to the reporting of Time magazine’s George Taber, the event sent shock waves through the wine industry in the year of the US Bicentennial. Neither California nor France would ever be the same again.

According to a later Time retrospective, “The tasting put Napa ‘on the map,’ and boosted other areas of California now heavy with wineries, like Sonoma County and the Central Coast.” It was a significant wine event, but was it truly that important?

Some components of the story have become mythologized; other parts ring true. So, let’s explore several little-known nuggets of information about the Judgment of Paris wine tasting. First, here are a few myth busters.

Establishing Some Vinous Facts

• The Judgment of Paris did not “make” or “save” the California wine industry. It was already well established and growing. By the early 1970s, already “a California wine renaissance had started.”

• It was not the first blind tasting with French judges comparing French and US white wines and red wines, and it certainly would not be the last. As Robert W. Benson— a lawyer and wine writer, like our Bevinars expert and wine teacher extraordinaire Mark Oldman—wrote in 1976: “Many California v. France tastings have been conducted in recent years, often with results similar to those in Paris.” Such organized comparisons, in fact, had started as early as 1955 according to expert Louis Gomberg.

• The 1976 wine tasting was not Steven Spurrier’s idea. That honor belonged to Patricia Gastaud-Gallagher, a young American woman who worked for Spurrier over several years. Even before 1976, the Academie du Vin had thus, at her urging, held American wine tastings each July Fourth. For the Bicentennial, her idea was to upgrade the event into something bigger and more promotional.

The Judgment of Paris Wasn’t Supposed to be a Competition

• What became known as “The Judgment” was really an event to simply familiarize the French wine cognoscenti with California wines. “The whole thing was in no way conceived of as a comparative tasting or a competition,” Gastaud-Gallagher told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2018. The Paris tasting “was educational. We just wanted to share what we found in California with people we respected.”

The Wine Judging

A 20-point scoring system was used. This was very common before Robert Parker promoted a 100-point system in the early 1980s. 20 points were then used at the University of California at Davis, in Italy, and in France. Jancis Robinson MW still uses those trusty 20 points. What was the system? For the Paris tasting, the nine jurors’ scores were simply added together. At the time, Taber provided an amusing portrayal of the tasters:

Often, the panel was confused. “Ah, back to France!” exclaimed [one judge] after sipping a 1972 Chardonnay from the Napa Valley. “That is definitely California. It has no nose,” said another judge—after downing a Batard Montrachet ’73 [from France]. Other comments included such Gallic gems as “this is nervous and agreeable,” “a good nose but not too much in the mouth,” and “this soars out of the ordinary.”

And the results were (drumroll, please):

• Whites: Château Montelena (132), Meursault-Charmes (126.5), Chalone (121), Spring Mountain (104), Beaune “Clos des Mouches” (101), Freemark Abbey (100), Bâtard-Montrachet (94), Puligny-Montrachet Les Pucelles” (89), Veedercrest (88), David Bruce (42).

• Reds: Stag’s Leap (127.5); Mouton-Rothschild (126), Haut-Brion (125.5), Montrose (122), Ridge “Monte Bello” (103.5), Leoville-las-Cases (97), Mayacamas (89.5), Clos du Val (87.5), Heitz “Martha’s Vineyard” (84.5), Freemark Abbey (78).

Spurrier announced before the red tasting that the judges had given top scores not to one of the Bourgogne French wines but to the 1973 Chardonnay from Chateau Montelena, a boutique vineyard in Calistoga. After that, Spurrier recalls believing that the tasters became determined to pick a French winner from among the reds. Taber, who wrote a book on this “Judgment of Paris” and its significance, believed the same. The female judge, Odette Kahn, even demanded her Paris tasting ballot back. According to one report, with Spurrier’s anouncement she “understood immediately that she’d been bamboozled” and could result in some bad publicity, for her and for French wine. No matter, however, because the top red was Stag’s Leap from Napa Valley.

Here’s a few more little-known nuggets

• Taber’s article was published without a byline, buried on page 58 of the July 7, 1976, issue of Time magazine next to an ad for Armstrong Tires. Taber had declined the first invitation to attend and report on the event but eventually gave in; and on that day, he was the only journalist present.

• Spurrier consciously avoided including Robert Mondavi’s Napa Valley wines in the event—he believed they were already too well known and the point was to show off more recent upstart wineries. He didn’t even visit Mondavi Winery during his California trip. In the case of entries from older California wineries, they were all recently under new management in 1976. In any event, Warren Winarski of Stag’s Leap actually studied winemaking with Mondavi, so Bob’s spirit was present.

• It was Gastaud-Gallagher who visited Northern California in 1975 as part of the plan to implement her idea of a bicentennial tasting. And two wineries stood out: Chateau Montelena and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. The impetus was truly hers. “Patricia really was the one who put it all together,” Taber told Esther Mobley. “Not that Steven was a nitwit, but Patricia was the one who made the crucial decisions and the crucial trips. She was the one who learned that they were making some very good wines in California.” When Spurrier visited in April 1976, “He really didn’t know about California wines,” according to his local Napa guide, Joanne DePuy.

  • The vines producing the Cabernet Sauvignon grapes for the Stag’s Leap 1973 vintage wine were a mere three years old.

The Details of the Paris Wine Tasting

Finally, although a lot has been written about the 1976 event, few authors actually give full details. So, here are the facts:

• The French wines tasted at the Judgment of Paris event were the following. The Bordeaux included the 1970 Château Mouton-Rothschild, 1970 Château Haut-Brion, 1970 Château Montrose, and 1971 Château Leoville-las-Cases. The Bourgogne entries counted the 1973 Meursault-Charmes (Domaine Roulot), 1973 Beaune “Clos des Mouches” (Drouhin), 1973 Bâtard-Montrachet (Ramonet-Prudhon), and 1972 Puligny-Montrachet “Les Pucelles” (Domaine Leflaive).

• The California selections included reds, all labeled as Cabernet Sauvignon: 1973 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, 1971 Ridge “Monte Bello,” 1971 Mayacamas, 1972 Clos du Val, 1970 Heitz “Martha’s Vineyard,” and the 1969 Freemark Abbey. The whites were the following Chardonnays: 1973 Château Montelena, 1974 Chalone, 1973 Spring Mountain, 1972 Freemark Abbey, 1972 Veedercrest, and the 1973 David Bruce.

Were the “judges” biased or did they want to give elite French winemakers a wakeup call by purposefully giving high scores to the US wines? Not likely. Gastaud-Gallagher and Spurrier really wanted to put the Cali competitors through their paces. For the record:

• The nine members of the Paris wine jury included Christian Vanneque, sommelier of La Tour d’Argent; Pierre Brejoux, inspector general of the Institut National des Appellations d’Origine Contrôleé (AOC); Odette Kahn, director of the highly influential Revue de Vin de France; Michel Dovaz of the Institut Oenologique de France; Aubert de Villaine, codirector of the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti; Claude Dubois-Millot, a director of Le Nouveau Guide; Pierre Tari, owner of Château Giscours; Raymond Oliver, owner of the restaurant Le Grand Vefour; and Jean-Claude Vrinat, owner of the restaurant Raillevent.

The 1976 Judgment of Paris forever altered the wine industry’s landscape, more so in the US than in France, challenging entrenched notions of Gallic superiority and ushering in a new era of global recognition for US wines. As Mobely wrote, it “has all the makings of a classic tale. It’s myth in the Barthesian sense of the word, a seamless promotion of the American dream.” Winiarski told her, “It was like the Copernican revolution. . . . A complete reversal of the way things were.” The little-known nuggets of this historic event provide a deeper appreciation for the audacity and vision of those involved, particularly Steven Spurrier, Patricia Gastaud-Gallagher, and George Taber. Their efforts helped democratize the wine world and fueled a spirit of innovation that continues to drive winemakers worldwide.

Charlie Leary

A member of the Circle of Wine Writers, Charlie Leary has directed restaurant wine programs in the US, Canada, Costa Rica, and France. In the mid 1990s, while earning a PhD from Cornell University, he made artisanal cheeses and counted among the first North Americans inducted into the Guilde International des Fromagers; he later planned, planted, and managed an IGP vineyard in Andalusia.

His book-length guide to worldwide wine education programs (Leary’s Global Wineology) was first published in 2022, in part based on his experience earning numerous wine certifications. His feature articles have appeared in Decanter magazine, Jane Anson’s Inside Bordeaux, JancisRobinson.com, Sommelier Business, Hudin.com, and Tim Atkin MW’s website, among others. He recently consulted for the wine metaverse startup Second Winery and wrote a detailed report on the history of wine sensory analysis for the Wine Scholar Guild. Charlie now lives in Panama, where he offers wine classes, and is writing a book on the philosopher Montesquieu as an eighteenth century winegrower. IG: @bacopty