The Merry Drinker

I have just read The Judgment of Paris, by George Taber. This splendid book tells the story of the 1976 Paris wine tasting, at which a panel of distinguished French critics compared wines from France and California in a blind tasting. To everyone’s shock, the winners turned out to be Californian.

Every aspect of the story was hilarious. The organizer, an Englishman called Steven Spurrier, did his best to stack the contest in favour of France. Mr Spurrier owned a wine school in Paris, and had no desire to upset the people he did business with each day. So he chose the most distinguished white Burgundies (Clos des Mouches, Meursault Charmes Roulot, Bâtard-Montrachet, Puligny-Montrachet) and the most celebrated red Bordeaux (Mouton Rothschild, Haut-Brion, Léoville-Las-Cases), convinced that the judges would recognise them effortlessly. And to be sure, the judges had no doubt about what they were drinking. “Definitely California. It has no nose,” one declared, as he sniffed the Bâtard-Montrachet. “Ah, back to France,” said another, while sipping a Californian Chardonnay.

So when the winning red wine turned out to be from Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, and the winning white from Château Montelena - two small, unknown firms from the Napa Valley - France responded with its customary humility and good grace. Mr Spurrier was ostracised by the French wine world, and one of the judges accused him of fraud. The judges themselves received abuse and hate mail. The episode was so painful for them that to this day one of them, the head of the Domaine de la Romanée Conti, refuses to discuss it.

France’s press tried to ignore the story, and the few French journalists who troubled to report it dismissed the event as insignificant. But needless to say, the US press took a different view, and the story flew around the world. The episode is now considered the birth moment of the modern wine industry, for it proved beyond serious argument that it was possible to make wines of the first rank outside France. Not only California’s winemakers, but those of Chile, New Zealand and a string of other countries, were persuaded to raise their standards to unprecedented levels. As a result, ours is the best time there has ever been for drinking wine.

The people we should thank for this - apart from Mr Spurrier and the Paris judges - are Warren Winiarski, the owner of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, and Mike Grgich, the winemaker at Château Montelena. Thanks to his new-found celebrity, Mr Grgich was able to set up his own winery. This week’s wine is his Chardonnay, which he assures us is made in the same style as the one that triumphed in 1976. Interestingly, it is a lot closer in style to white Burgundy than most modern California Chardonnays, possessing a lovely honeyed nose and a creamy, caramel-hinted palate. It costs $38 in the US, £28 in the UK, excellent value for a wine of this pedigree. My guess is that the price will not stay this low much longer. Next year two movies will be released about the Paris tasting, one based on Mr Taber’s book, the other a more fanciful version along predictable Hollywood lines. I have no idea how good either film will be, but we can be confident that the renewed interest in Mr Grgich will add substantially to the price of his wines. My advice is to try the Chardonnay now, and avoid paying the celebrity premium.