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BookmarkThe Paris Tasting of 1976 will forever be remembered as the landmark event that transformed the wine industry. At this legendary contest -- a blind tasting -- a panel of top French wine experts shocked the industry by choosing unknown California wines over France's best.
George M. Taber, the only reporter present, recounts this seminal contest and its far-reaching effects, focusing on three gifted unknowns behind the winning wines : a college lecturer, a real estate lawyer, and a Yugoslavian immigrant. With unique access to the main players and a contagious passion for his subject, Taber renders this historic event and its tremendous aftershocks -- repositioning the industry and sparking a golden age for viticulture across the globe. With an eclectic cast of characters and magnificent settings, Judgment of Paris is an illuminating tale and a story of the entrepreneurial spirit of the new world conquering the old.
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Taber does a very good job telling the story of the famous 1976 wine tasting that included both top American and French wines. What he does especially well is provide context about the event and the history leading up to it. The book presents an overview the history of wine in both France and California, and including some of the individual stories of the California winemakers which is key to understanding the significance of the results of the tasting and makes the story more personal. Taber also demystifies the event which has been over analyzed and told in a charming but highly inaccurate movie, Bottle Shock. The tasting took place over two hours and was witnessed by only one reporter – Taber. Some reviewers of the book complain that there is too little written about the tasting event. The reason for that is pretty simple. Some experts convened, tasted, voted, and left. It was all over in a rush and there wasn’t much to report about the activities of that short period.
What Taber does particularly well is explain that the tasting was not intended as an “us versus them” contest, but as one wine merchant’s means of helping market US wines in France by having French wine experts recognize the quality of California wines. It was the reaction of the public afterward that gave the tasting its unintended significance.
The real message of the book is that the sharing of information and collaboration of winemakers around the world, modeled after the experience of the Californians, has helped widen the production of good wine globally. Countries such as South Africa, Australia, and Chile have quickly become major producers of very drinkable wine. While some bemoan the globalization (some call it Parkerization) of wine, Taber points out that there are still new producers such as those in Portugal who are creating great new wines using unusual local varietals. While some of the bad domestic wines will be replaced by those of major producers such as Australia’s Yellow Tail, that may not always be a bad thing.
The reason for rating the book 4 stars instead of 5 is that some of the writing is choppy and repetitive (how many times do we need to be told about the wine making process and the importance of malolactic fermentation?). Don’t let this discourage you. Most of the book is well written, and the stories of some of the individual winemakers are fascinating.
I think I’ll go have a glass of wine now and relax.
I knew a little bit of the history of the Paris judgment. Since this book is told by someone present there, it is the most reliable source of information. I think the history is very interesting on itself. I just though the author could do better… He takes a lot of pages on the story of the wine makers, which is interesting but too much detailed. The judgement itself has much less space, and I think the author could have taken it longer. After the judgment and its repercussion the author takes a lot more on considerations on all world regions…
It is all interesting, but I had bought the book for the Paris judgement, not for the author’s opinion on South African wines.
Loved the historical recount of the land, the wineries and the wine makers, didn’t love the superfluous progression of modern wine closing chapters.
With Judgment Of Paris, George Taber takes the reader on a journey through time, following a set of characters, sometimes through generations, who have made the wine industry what it is, or at least what it was before it started to slip. The wine business is becoming more and more another corporate calamity, with a few holdouts supplying very little, very expensive, top of the line wines while a good many are producing middle of the road wines for somewhat fair prices. But when the tasting written about in this book took place, the California winemakers consisted largely of devoted, tireless men (and a few women) who poured their every ounce of energy and knowledge into producing wine that would surpass any others in the world. Most of the world agreed at the time (1976) that France made the world’s best wines. Taber tells the tale of the great event where California wines were pitted against French wines by an English wine expert, in France. A Time magazine reporter stationed in France, he was the only journalist to attend the tasting. Not because he was the only one asked, but because most thought the tasting was doomed to be non-news. After all, French wines opposite California wines? You didn’t need to be a genius to figure out who’d come out on top of that one. Or did you?
This book is a wonderful insight into the minds and tactics of some of the world’s greatest winemakers. It tells of the lives of many of the major players in the growth of the Napa Valley and Sonoma County as a wine haven. The loving detail to which Taber enlightens the reader to wine’s past is delicately interwoven with stories of small wineries and hard working winemakers struggling to get a place of their own, then planting and harvesting their grapes, and the endless challenges they faced to get their final product to be the best it could possibly be. I couldn’t suggest this more vehemently to anyone interested in the wine industry, or to those who just like to read stories of greatness and how it is achieved. Taber did an amazing job researching this book. You will not regret buying it!
“The best fertilizer for a vineyard is the footsteps of the owner.” Tabor captures the sentiment of this statement as he gives his readers a sense of the passions of the California winemakers whose wines were in the Judgment of Paris. These pioneers did not have a choice; they had winemaking in their DNA.
Tabor has an interesting story to tell. The bio-sketches of the legendary winemakers are truly American: immigrants, innovators, entrepreneurs, and scrappy. The cross-pollination of ideas and methods of creating wines occurred in all directions and continues today. Because soil is so important to the character of wine, Tabor faithfully included the geological makeup of the soil and sub layers in the description of the vineyards in California and France. Tabor captures these winemakers’ special ability of looking at land and determining it suitability for sustaining a vineyard – how do you learn that? Tabor also includes the importance of the agricultural information available to these pioneers from the University of California at Davis. The emergence of these winemakers is very much like the process of creating a good wine.
As a Californian and having lived in Napa for a while, I was aware of the tasting in 1976 at Paris, but never had the appreciation or history of its impact. I enjoyed this book because it skillfully connected so many of the puzzle pieces of my experiences.
Take this book, along with Mastering the Art of French Cooking, with you on your next trip to the Napa Valley. Visit these wineries, stop at the restaurant, Julia, at Copia, and enjoy the treasures of this valley.
Thanks to George Tabor who captured this bit of history for us to savor. The impact of this little event in Paris is still reverberating globally. Cheers!