Behind the Judgment of Paris

Napa Valley's Compelling Impact on the World of Wine Today

BY MARK GUDGEL | Pictured above: Steven Spurrier at Clos Du Val // Photo by Rocco Ceselin courtesy of Clos du Val

When Patricia Gastaud- Gallagher, an American working as a writer in Paris, proposed a tasting of American wines to her English employer, Steven Spurrier, Spurrier was intrigued. Gallagher never envisioned a blind tasting nor a competition, but Spurrier, an impeccably-dressed wine merchant with a shop, a wine school, and a devil-may-care approach to business, felt that a blind tasting was the most earnest way to approach such a thing. Besides, reasoned Spurrier, the results were predictable; the French wines would surely win.

The problem arose, of course, when they did not. Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon triumphed over the best of Bordeaux’s left bank, while Chateau Montelena’s Chardonnay was victorious over the giants of Bourgogne. Spurrier and the rest of the judges were shocked, and George Taber’s short article about the tasting in Time Magazine has since been heralded as perhaps the most critical piece of wine writing ever composed. The setting was France, the judges were French, the results were a scandal, and the impact was as everlasting as it was profound.

The true impact of these unlikely results, artfully termed “The Judgment of Paris” by Taber after the event that sparked the Trojan War, was that the myth of unparalleled French terroir and winemaking was shattered, and the reality that excellent wine can be made all around the globe began to come into focus. Warren Winiarski, winemaker of the winning Cabernet, pointed out that it was a victory for America and the world. To put it another way, the reason that South African Pinotage, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, Argentine Malbec, and Lebanese Bordeaux blends are readily available on wine lists worldwide can be to a large extent traced to this singular occurrence in Paris nearly fifty years ago.

Many wine lovers are familiar with the story of Chateau Montelena’s Chardonnay and their victory over the great white wines of Bourgogne, popularized further by the 2008 film Bottleshock starring Alan Rickman as Steven Spurrier who, it bears mention, threatened to sue over the way he was portrayed. But the Judgment of Paris was not just about the two winning wines. Rather, the Judgment of Paris was a statement about the quality of the previously unheralded Californian terroir and, by extension, the potential for the entire world to produce wines of the highest quality.

Chateau Montelena 1973 Winning Chardonnay

Photo by Susanna Blåvarg

Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars and Chateau Montelena were joined by a litany of other small producers, each one hand-selected by Spurrier for the unquestionable excellence of their wines. Six producers from the Napa Valley were among the remaining wineries, including Heitz Wine Cellars, Clos Du Val Winery, Mayacamas Vineyards, Freemark Abbey Winery, Spring Mountain Vineyard, and Veedercrest Vineyards. Three additional wineries, Ridge Vineyards and David Bruce Winery from the Santa Cruz AVA and Chalone Vineyard, located in what today is known as the Chalone AVA, rounded out Spurrier’s selection of extraordinary Californian contenders. Since the time of the Judgment of Paris, many of these producers have gone on to do great things, further advancing the place of California’s AVAs in markets at home and abroad.

The very next year, Miljenko Grgich, winemaker of the Chateau Montelena Chardonnay, opened his own Napa winery, Grgich Hills, and his first vintage of Chardonnay won a gold medal at the Orange County Fair. The year after that, in 1978, the Vintner’s Club in San Francisco held a replica tasting of identical wines and vintages, which Spurrier flew in to help supervise. The winning white wines of the ’78 tasting were, in order, Chalone Vineyards, Chateau Montelena, and Spring Mountain Vineyards. In 1978, the first French wine, the 1972 Puligny-Montrachet Les Pucelles Domaine Leflaive, came in fourth.

Judgment of Paris Judges

Photo by Bella Spurrier

Also in 1978, the red wines were tasted again, with even more dramatic results. Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars maintained its position at the top, but Heitz Wine Cellars moved from ninth place to second, while Ridge Vineyards moved from fifth up to third. Again, the fourth-place wine was French: the 1970 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild which had come in second in Paris.

What was so remarkable about the results of the Judgment of Paris and those tastings that followed was that there was no way to write them off. Indeed, French publications like Le Figaro and Le Monde attempted to do so, describing the results as “laughable” and insisting that they couldn’t be taken seriously, and yet time and again when French wines were put up against comparable American wines, more often than not they were bested.

Photo courtesy of Spring Mountain Vineyards

In 1979, three years after the Judgment of Paris, the restaurant guide Gault and Millau held what they termed the Olympiad du Vin, a global wine tasting of differing varietals from producers all around the world. This time, the top Chardonnay was a 1976 Trefethen from Napa’s Oak Knoll. At the time, the Trefethens had no idea their wine had even been entered in the competition, but years later, Stephen Spurrier would confess to making the suggestion. The winning Riesling was made by Smith-Madrone on Spring Mountain. “It gave us some street cred,” said Stu Smith, who had founded the winery with his brother, Charlie. The Smith-Madrone Riesling remains to this day one of if not the single most highly regarded expressions of the varietal being produced in the Napa Valley, perhaps the entire world.

Smith Madrone Riesling

Photo courtesy of Smith Madrone

Predictably, the results of the Gault and Millau tasting further provoked the ire of French wine officials and producers. Robert Drouhin of Maison Joseph Drouhin effectively demanded the winning wines next be put up against his own exquisite fermentations. Thus, a mere six months later, another blind tasting was held, and the ‘76 Trefethen again came in first, this time besting Drouhin’s 1976 Puligny Montrachet. To his credit, this prompted Drouhin to cease clinging to denial and to call Trefethen “The yardstick by which all other Chardonnays must be measured.” Within a decade, Robert Drouhin had purchased substantial holdings in Oregon’s Willamette Valley and established Domaine Drouhin. It didn’t matter how often the American wines were challenged, it seemed. They would rise to meet that challenge every time.

Jim and Bo Barrett in the cellar

Photo courtesy of Chateau Montelena

Two tenth-anniversary tastings of the Judgment of Paris occurred in 1986, one hosted by the French Culinary Institute, the other by Wine Spectator. There was a theory circulating that French wines had superior age-ability, though this notion was quickly laid to rest. In the former tasting of the same wines from 1976, Clos du Val took first place, and Ridge took second, with French wines rounding out the top five. American producers occupied the top five positions exclusively in the latter tasting, with Heitz, Mayacamas, and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars joining Clos du Val and Ridge.

The myth of unparalleled French terroir and winemaking was shattered, and the reality that excellent wine can be made all around the globe began to come into focus.

Around the same time, the 1985 Groth Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon from Oakville was awarded 100 points by Robert Parker, the first hundred-pointer ever made in the United States. Nils Venge was winemaker at Groth, and Wine Advocate’s acknowledgment of this wine’s superior quality placed yet another exclamation point on the Napa Valley’s relatively newfound position of status in the world of wine. Venge, founder of Saddleback Cellars, came to be known as “The King of Cab.”

Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars 1973 Winning Vintage

Photo Courtesy of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars

In the end, however, it wasn’t about competition, it was about making extraordinary wine, and there was no longer any denying that the Napa Valley—and many surrounding AVAs— have continued that proud tradition right up to the present. Mayacamas Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay regularly garner scores in the high 90’s from the likes of Wine Enthusiast and Antonio Galloni. Spring Mountain Vineyards produces Cabernet Sauvignon and a blend called Elivette, both of which regularly score in the high 90’s from Wine Spectator and has one of the most impressive lists of library wines available in Wine Country. Clos du Val continues to make phenomenal wines as well. Their Cabernet and Cabbased blends earn high scores from critics, including Antonio Galloni and Jeb Dunnuck. In the 2018 documentary, Somm III, Spurrier lightheartedly quipped that Napa might name a small street in his honor. Today, the road leading from the Silverado Trail to Clos du Val is, indeed, Steven Spurrier Lane.

In 2006, in a thirtieth-anniversary tasting of the Judgment of Paris, it was Ridge who took first place, followed closely by Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, Mayacamas, Heitz, and Clos du Val, respectively. Indeed, Californian wine proved that it has immense potential to be cellared—for the patient type.

By the time the 30 th anniversary of the Judgment of Paris arrived, the world of wine looked nothing like it did in the 1970s and before. The French continue to make excellent wine, of course, as do the Americans, but so do the Spanish, Italians, Australians, South Africans, Chileans, Argentinians, Israelis, Lebanese, Canadians, Mexicans, and many more. Like Bordeaux, Burgundy, and the Napa Valley, each nation’s distinct regional terroir and the varietals that thrive within them come to define their wines. The zeitgeist of twenty-first-century viticulture is one in which wine is not only grown globally but also appreciated and consumed as such, further shrinking the planet and transporting consumers to different regions with every meal and with every sip of something new. That Chateau Montelena’s famous Chardonnay, one of the two wines that in 1976 inspired this renaissance, was crafted by a Croatian who was trained by a Russian who was in the employ of a Frenchman from grapes grown in America is but further evidence of the Napa Valley’s truly immeasurable impact on the entire world of wine. And so, like the wines that hail from within, the Napa Valley herself, it seems, will stand the test of time.