Judgment of Paris

The golden age of viticulture was sparked by the now-famous 1976 Paris Tasting, where a panel of French wine experts blindly compared the country's most coveted wines against the new generation of California wines, shockingly exalting the latter. Taber documents not only this historic event, but all of wine production. Sean Runnette is clearly enamored by the subject as he lends eloquent emotion to vine-to-bottle creations. But key wine-making traditions and prized varietals have customarily carried a French appellation, and Runnette does not speak these terms with a credible accent. Taber's vivid prose covers the momentous tasting and the current globalization of the industry and introduces the pioneers whose new techniques resulted in the game-changing future of California wine production. A.W. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

June 27, 2005
In 1976, a Paris wine shop arranged a tasting as a gimmick to introduce some California wines; the judges, of course, were all French and militantly chauvinistic. Only one journalist bothered to attend, a Time
correspondent, looking for a possible American angle. The story he got turned out to be a sensation. In both red and white blind tastings, an American wine won handily: a 1973 Stag's Leap cabernet and a 1973 Chateau Montelena chardonnay. When the story was published the following week, it stunned both the complacent French and fledgling American wine industries—and things have never been the same since. Taber, the Time
man, has fashioned an entertaining, informative book around this event. Following a brisk history of the French-dominated European wine trade with a more detailed look at the less familiar American effort, he focuses on the two winning wineries, both of which provide him with lively tales of colorful amateurs and immigrants making good, partly through willingness to experiment with new techniques. While the outrage of some of the judges is funny, this is a serious business book, too, sure to be required reading for American vintners and oenophiles. Photos. Agent, Wendy Silbert.