There were 12 California wines, including Ridge Vineyards, Freemark Abbey, Spring Mountain, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars and Chateau Montelena - all of which were largely obscure, unknowns in Europe.Īt the time, it didn't even seem like a fair contest - France made the world's best wines and that was that. Steven Spurrier with the Competition WinesĪmong the French wines Spurrier picked were the “elites” of the industry: Batard-Montrachet, Chateau Mouton-Rothschild, and Chateau Haut-Brion. By any standard, the nine French judges were the crème de la crème -and included Odette Khan, editor of a prestigious wine magazine, and Aubert de Villaine, the director of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, a Burgundy estate that makes some of the world's best, and most expensive, wines. To judge the event, Spurrier invited the most respected names in the French wine world. InterContinental Hotel, ParisĪfter six months of intensive planning, the event was scheduled for at the Intercontinental Hotel in Paris, not far from Spurrier's shop and school.
He had no idea that the event would completely transform the global wine industry.
Spurrier’s only real goal was to create some recognition for Californian wines and generate publicity for his school. Spurrier's idea was to stage a wine tasting that would pit some of the finest wines in France against the relatively unknown, upstart California wines. It would become known as the “Judgment of Paris,” organized by Steven Spurrier, a British owner of a small wine shop in Paris where customers were encouraged to taste wines before they bought them. In 1973, he also started L’Academie du Vin, France's first private wine school. In a Parisian hotel nearly a half century ago, the most talked-about wine tasting in history unfolded-an event that would forever rock the wine world.
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