On May 24, 1976, a group of French wine experts sat down in Paris to blind taste a selection of wines.
The tasting was organised by British wine merchant Steven Spurrier, who ran a small wine shop and wine school in Paris — L'Academie du Vin . His intention had nothing to do with causing an upset. He simply wanted to celebrate the US Bicentennial and introduce the French establishment to some of the better wines coming out of California. It was meant to be educational — not a competition.
He made a last minute decision to switch the tasting to a blind format: realising the judges would never objectively evaluate a bottle they could see was Californian. What he got was an honest result. And that honest result was about to cause shock waves — although possibly could have gone realatively unnoticed if not for journalist Gerge M. Taber's serendipitous presence.
The Journalist Who Almost Wasn't There
Here is the part of the story that most people don't know. The entire global impact of the Judgment of Paris nearly didn't happen — because almost nobody turned up to cover it.
Spurrier and his American business partner Patricia Gallagher had invited every major news outlet they could think of — prominent French publications, American correspondents, the works. Every single one of them turned the invitation down. The conventional wisdom at the time was that French wine was so self-evidently superior that a tasting pitting it against unknown California wines was simply a non-story. A predictable result, a boring afternoon, and a complete waste of a journalist's time.
Taber, who was a foreign correspondent for Time but also a student at Spurrier's wine school, was invited as a personal favour. And he initially said no as well. He only changed his mind because it was a slow news day and he had nothing better to do. By being the only reporter who bothered to show up, he stumbled into the wine scoop of the century.
The Time Magazine Article
The superbly written article written by George M. Taber about the Paris Tasting that was published in Time magazine on Monday June 7th 1976 can be read here. The short pithy prose is a delight to read. And, the very Gallic comments captured by Taber cause a reflexive smile on one's dial.
It's interesting to note, Taber commented that the top 4 Californian Chardonnays were little known even to Californian wine lovers because they were in short supply and also because, at $6 plus, they were rather expensive. According to dollartimes.com $6 in 1976 is equivalent to $33.16 in 2024 dollars. I wonder if many wine lovers today would consider $33 expensive for a really good bottle? Sure it's not cheap. But, would $33 be a barrier to your average wine lover? How times have changed.
A Name That Stuck
The phrase "Judgment of Paris" was not Spurrier's. He simply refered to it as either the Paris Tasting or the Bicentennial tasting of Californian Wines. The name came from George M. Taber — the only journalist in the room — who used it as the headline for his article in Time magazine. It was a perfect double entendre: a group of French experts passing judgment on wines while seated in Paris, and a nod to the ancient Greek myth in which a mortal named Paris is forced to judge a beauty contest between three goddesses — a contest that, in the original story, triggered the Trojan War. The name captured the high-stakes drama of the result so well that it stuck permanently. Spurrier himself used it for the rest of his life.
The Fallout
Spurrier was not exactly celebrated in France for his role in the tasting. In a country that considered itself the unquestioned capital of the wine world, being seen as the man who organised the ambush — even an accidental one — made him persona non grata in certain circles. He was temporarily blacklisted by parts of the French wine establishment. In later years, he described the whole event as a series of "accidental choices rather than a calculated ambush." He genuinely meant it. It just didn't look that way from the French side of the table.
The Book and the Movie
Taber went on to write a book about the event titled: Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting that Revolutionized Wine. The book was later turned into a movie, starring Alan Rickman, called Bottle Shock that took probably a bit too much poetic license with actual events with no seeming benefit to the story.
Spurrier also talks about the tasting, and subsequent tastings, in his autobiography A Life in Wine. It's a great read for anyone interested in wines or just interested in interesting lives.
