When US Wine Got Itself on the Global Map

It was in the mid-1970s when supposedly higher end wine from the US (primarily California) was starting to invade on European dominance (primarily France on a global scale) in the world of top wine. A British wine merchant and critic by the name of Steven Spurrier (no relation to the football coach that I am aware) decided it was once and for all time to put an end to all that malarkey. So, he organized what was officially known as The Paris Wine Tasting of 1976 and later became more famous as the Judgment of Paris. For those who want to see a likely sensationalized account of it, you can look up the movie "Bottle Shock" on Netflix.

In any event, Spurrier invited 6 California wineries as well as 4 of the top estates from Bordeaux to compete in the red wine category (California Cabernet and generally Cabernet-based wines from Bordeaux) and separately 6 California wineries to have their Chardonnay compete in the white category against some of the finest from Burgundy. 

All of these wines were to be judged blind by 11 judges, 10 from France as well as Spurrier. And, when this esteemed panel of judges ranked the French wines far ahead of any from California, this would surely dispel any thoughts that American wine was even remotely on the same level as French wine.

Each wine was evaluated by each judge and ranked on a 20-point scale. There was no guidance as to how a judge was to assign points to each wine. 

The blind tastings were completed and surely there were mistakes. In the white wine category, led by the 1973 Chateau Montelena, the American wines placed 1st, 3rd, and 4th. In the red wine category, the 1973 Stags Leap was the winner, but in all fairness, French wines did place 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. 

Surely there were errors. And, even if there were not, the French wines would age better. 

So, in 1978, in San Francisco, the same vintages of the same wines were re-tasted under the same competitive conditions. This time, in the white wine category and in the red wine category, US wines placed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. 

But, two years was not a long time for the wines to age. So, the same wines were tasted again at the French Culinary Institute Tasting of 1986. There, American white wines placed first and second and American red wines placed first through fifth.

And, in 2006, Steven Spurrier held a special 30th Anniversary competition tasting most of the same red wines in a similar competitive environment one more time. This time, American wines placed first through fifth and tenth while French wines placed sixth through ninth.

Despite controversy and claims that wines were cherry-picked to help the American wines to win the competition, 30 years worth of results of blind tastings where American wines won every single competition spoke for itself. Sometimes, judges were exclusively European, sometimes they were not, but their is no doubt that American wines had a place on the wine map after that 1976 event.