Rival "Judgment of Paris" films spark controversy

[Robin Garr]

This article in <I>The Guardian</I> is rather poorly done from a wine-geek standpoint, but there's some excellent dissing in here ...

Rival films to tell tale of 1976 tasting when classics were humbled by the New World

Kim Willsher in Paris
Wednesday August 1, 2007
The Guardian

It was a calamity for French viticulture - and it sparked a wine war that rages even to this day.

In 1976 a group of 11 distinguished wine experts were asked to compare some of France's finest wines with some little-known California bottles in a blind test. At the time it was carved in stone that France produced the best wines in the world.

When the unthinkable happened and every one of the judges - nine of them French - awarded top marks to the American wines, the reaction brought a whole new meaning to the phrase grapes of wrath. Three decades on, French viticulture has never completely recovered and some in France still find the event too painful to discuss.

Now the tasting is the reason behind another round of bloodletting, this time over two rival Hollywood films - one starring British actor Alan Rickman - that are being made about the legendary judgment.

At the time the French cried foul, dismissed the result as a fluke and declaring that anyone who knew anything knew as a matter of fact and instinct that French wines were better than California wines. The British wine merchant Steven Spurrier, who had organised the competition, was shunned as an agent of perfidious Albion, while the Gallic tasters received hate mail for "letting France down".

Mr Spurrier is involved in the so-called "official" version of the event, a film called Judgment of Paris based on a book by Time journalist George Taber, the only reporter present at the tasting. Mr Spurrier has accused the producers of a rival movie, entitled Bottle Shock and starring Rickman as Mr Spurrier and Danny DeVito as Mike Grgich, a celebrated Californian winemaker whose Napa Valley Chardonnay triumphed in the 1976 tasting, of "defamation and gross misinterpretation".

Having read the script Mr Spurrier is reportedly outraged that he is being portrayed as an "impossibly effete snob" and says the portrayal of his character is "deeply insulting". He has now written to the Bottle Shock producers threatening to sue and demanding that his name is excised from the story.

"There is hardly a word that is true in the script and many, many pure inventions as far as I am concerned," Mr Spurrier said in Decanter magazine, where he works as consultant editor.

Full story in The Guardian

[David M. Bueker]

"and it sparked a wine war that rages even to this day"

Hardly. If USA vs. French wine is a war then Yankees-Red Sox is nuclear armageddon.

[Robin Garr]

"and it sparked a wine war that rages even to this day"

Yep, that kind of thing (and more) is why I mentioned that it's not much of a story from a wine-geek standpoint.

Hardly. If USA vs. French wine is a war then Yankees-Red Sox is nuclear armageddon.

Well? It <i>is</i>, isn't it?

[David M. Bueker]

Uh...nope. And I'm a Sox fan, born & bred. I don't get the whole "rivalry" thing, in sports, wine or business.

[James Roscoe]

David, weren't you the one who brought the analogy up in the first place?

If the Yankees - Red Sox is nuclear armageddon, then Cowboys - Redskins is Universal annihilation. (I don't know where you go with all the college rivalry analogies.)

To be semi-serious, I don't know what to make out of something like this anyway. There are so many variables at a tasting that it really doesn't make much sense to give it a lot of credence.

[David M. Bueker]

Just making the comparison James, I don't personally endorse it (and I'm a Redskins fan).

[Robin Garr]

Uh...nope. And I'm a Sox fan, born & bred. I don't get the whole "rivalry" thing, in sports, wine or business.

Am I going to have to start carrying around a little flag that says "It's a joke, folks!"?

[James Roscoe]

Uh...nope. And I'm a Sox fan, born & bred. I don't get the whole "rivalry" thing, in sports, wine or business.

Am I going to have to start carrying around a little flag that says "It's a joke, folks!"?

When it comes to sports rivalries, life is deadly serious. (flag)

Naturally it's movies that evoke claims of distortion and misinterpretation. In contrast, I saw little fuss over ahistorical and jingoistic 2006 accounts of the 1976 event, repeated in the media without, apparently, anyone doing much research. (First and most important comparison of its kind ... French superiority at the time carved in stone ... [later at the 2006 re-tasting] California wines proven ageworthy after all ...)

Contrast the main California-wine reference book published in the years after the event (or since), which mentions it several times. (ISBN 0520050851, which I recommend if you're interested in California.)

Bob Thompson (a respected US expert on California wines):
It was not so much that somebody staged an international tasting, or that expert tasters placed some California [wines] on an equal footing with some of their French counterparts. That had been happening for several years. The Spurrier tasting became important because Time reported it. When Gault-Millau staged their much more informative Wine Olympiad a few years later,* the news magazines had already spent their interest in the comparative tasting story. The Gault-Millau results went ignored by all but special interest wine publications and a few newspapers.

Another expert mentioned the long tradition already among wine lovers of doing comparative international tastings (and sometimes publicizing them, as with the Vintners Club). The 1976 tasting opened European markets to California but The ratings in Paris came as no surprise to the many groups in California that regularly stage comparative blind tastings of varietal wines from different regions of the world. I can testify to that. (But what had happened to all this perspective in the 2006 accounts?)

Some 2006 journalists even went so far as to assume that California wines were not known to age well until the re-creation of the Spurrier tasting. News to people who'd tasted great 1950s and 1960s products decades ago, when they already had mature years ...


* The 1979 Gault-Millau tasting was larger and even more decisive; California showed well, with international judges. The French gastronomic magazine proclaimed "there exist today in California some estates or establishments whose wines ... can count among the best in the world." This was reported in the US (I saw it), but not by Time.

The whole so-called controversy, or paradox, only supports my thesis that the value and true nature of the fine wine experience has little to do with taste. What one pays for a bottle of wine best defines its true value. Taste held up as the measure of worth is nothing more than the simple-minded conscious, after-the-fact rationalization of a holistic valuation happening in the unconscious mind; which, by its very nature, is not recognized or understood, – at least not by persons ignorant of the psychic mechanism.

There was an article in Tuesday’s NYT that talked about this phenomenon, as though it had just been discovered. Educated people have recognized it since about 1900.

I sympathize with Steven Spurrier as the latest victim of the Hollywood distorting machine. Most of the victims are dead and cannot react; Spurrier can. If the "unofficial" film goes ahead, I hope that he wins large damages.

If Spurrier's mad, I can't imagine how Grgich feels. As Randy said, Danny DeVito????

If Spurrier's mad, I can't imagine how Grgich feels. As Randy said, Danny DeVito????

Good point. At least, he's roughly the right height. Maybe he can lose 100 lb fast?

Mark Lipton

1976 was a different world.

Many (most?) Europeans didn't even know that wine was made in California, and California wine didn't have that high a profile even in California

1976 was a different world. / Many (most?) Europeans didn't even know that wine was made in California, and California wine didn't have that high a profile even in California

What is your basis for the second opinion, Peter?

FWIW it conflicts with my observations growing up in California (even seeing higher-volume California products advertised on TV -- I could quote you some of the buzz lines); the more numerous observations of many wine-enthusiast friends (some of whom had tasting groups starting in the 1950)s; and the content of my inventory of US books from the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s about California wine. (A major 1975 overview, co-authored by Hugh Johnson, was the monthly "food" selection of a nationwide US book-of-the-month club.)

The first opinion also conflicts with my 1970s experiences as a student at universities in two parts of the US with international populations. European fellow students hearing I was from California routinely compared notes about California wines vs. the ones they knew. When I worked in two other US states around the time of the Spurrier and Gault-Millau tastings, wine was a popular hobby, with much discussion and comparison of California wines. Office co-workers in Oregon prided themselves on California wine inventories and made tasting trips.

(Whether or not it's relevant here, I do find -- I said this in print last decade on a different subject -- that many people will assert "xxx did not exist" or "few people were doing xxx" when what they mean is that they themselves were not doing or following xxx at the time. I'll never forget the 30-year-old wine merchant in 1997 who remarked confidently that "in 1982, few people in the US were interested in fine wines." Very contrary to the impression conveyed at the time in the wine shops, newsletters, newspaper wine columns, and various kinds of public tastings and classes I saw. But then I reminded myself that the speaker had been 15 years old at the time described, and probably saw none of this.)

Max:

What you see depends on where you are standing when you're looking at it.

I was in retail in Texas when the Judgement of Paris thing came about, and I can echo what you said. There was steadily increasing interest in and demand for California wines.

As a matter of fact when the Judgement furor started, I was in the middle of the most massive shift in iventory, floor space, shelf set and advertising that our fifty year old beverage chain had ever gone through---and we were shifting from the then-standard model of mostly CA jug wines and the "fine wine" set dominated largely by the French, German, Portugese (lots of rose, some port) and Italian lay-down shelves to a sea change focusing on significantly fewer skus and less shelf space to jugs, less focus and space on imports and adding tremendous amounts of space to boosting the CA 750ml sets.

I spent most of my time whittling away the plethora of Vouvrays, Bordeaux, Burgundies, and giving up that space to the likes of Kistler, Simi, Trefethen, BV, etc. The tide had shifted. Clearly, it had shifted. From jugs to 750mls. From generics to varietal names. From plonk to boutique. And from imported to domestic.

We were, of course, more than happy to hear the results of the Judgement (along with some other giant steps in prestige that happened around that time), for it both confirmed and accelerated our change.

And yes, I would imagine someone living in England in the late 70s/early 80s would not have noticed much of that change in attitude and habits, or at least not until significantly later.

Heck, it took me a while to understand the impact of what subsequently started happening in Washington state, then Oregon. Australia wasn't important. New Zealand was totally unknown (They make wine in New Zealand??? C'mon.) But things changed quickly.

They make wine in California?

1976 was a different world. / Many (most?) Europeans didn't even know that wine was made in California, and California wine didn't have that high a profile even in California

What is your basis for the second opinion, Peter?

My experiences of trying to buy California wine in California restuarants. Most seem to have it as an after thought to imported wines, similar to this menu for 1980 - http://www.wineloverspage.com/forum/vil ... php?t=9962

My experiences of trying to buy California wine in California restuarants. Most seem to have it as an after thought to imported wines, similar to this menu for 1980 - http://www.wineloverspage.com/forum/vil ... php?t=9962

Hoke and Peter, thanks for your thoughtful follow-ups.

I have to remark a little wryly that I almost wish we had that problem today in California, because many new restaurants in the state open with wine lists showing a tunnel vision to California alone. (Maybe serving customers with a similar perspective.)

Of course the wine list in the link is from a tourist venue in Nevada (rather than California), and some of its offerings would be discordant in any fine restaurant (Mateus? Lancers'?? The two notorious 1970s dating-bar "ro-zays" advertised on TV -- where is Blue Nun Liebfraumilch, to complete the picture? Compare A. J. Liebling's tirade about such wines in his memoir An Appetite for Paris -- "If a wine isn't good, then it doesn't 'go with' anything ..." -- that's from memory, may be slightly nonverbatim).

I too have menus from the era, possibly more representative for California, and might post from them.

But as Hoke said, it depends on vantage point. I was not visiting but living in California in those days. NB, in a related example the moderator of another, well-known wine forum deposed recently, in a thread on a famous California merchant who has eschewed high-alcohol wines, that he (the moderator) had followed California wine for decades, written articles, etc. etc., and had never heard of this person. This undoubtedly sincere statement conveyed to wine enthusiasts in California more about its author than about the merchant, who is a household name in wine tastings in California, has served as a judge in many places including the stringent Australian judgings, and is known throughout the wine and specialty-foods trades ...

I accompanied my wife to a nearby Borders Books & Music store the other day, and noticed several copies of the Judgement of Paris book by George Taber sitting on the discount table for $3.99. So, of course I purchased a copy. How is this book?

I haven't started reading it yet, so don't tell me how it ends. I want to be surprised.

-- Clark

I got the Taber book when it appeared. It's been said online, flippantly, that Taber built a whole career around the 1976 tasting. This book, anyway, fails to support such a notion.

It's a broad-based look at evolution of the international wine industry, and especially California, employing the 1976 Spurrier tasting as a fulcrum or focal point. (Even more so than, for example, Barnaby Conrad's 1988 absinthe book is mostly about broader cultural and historical subjects with absinthe as the common connection.)

...California wine didn't have that high a profile even in California

... In 1976, I was living in California ... there was little awareness of California wines

I gather you folks were going to the wrong restaurants!

Of course California is diverse and large (some 405,000 square km; compare United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland at 244,000) with far-flung population centers. Therefore, your California may not be my California.

But why (on earth) point to a wine list from a Nevada tourist casino, rather than from California restaurants favored by locals? In the SF-Bay area in 1976, that might include the Blue Fox, Narsai's, Chez Panisse, etc., and good neighborhood places of lower profile.

A Narsai's 1978 menu (singly-folded light card stock, net 12 x 18 inches or 30 x 45 cm) shows food on the front, wines on the inside pages, in fine print. These include 91 California varietal wines from such (already) well-known labels as Beaulieu, Chateau Montelena, Cakebread, Heitz, Kenwood, Louis Martini, Mirassou, Ridge, and Stag's Leap. (There's also a Corti Brothers Reserve Zinfandel* and the 1955 and 65 Inglenook Cabernets, $55 and $18 respectively.**) This is not even to mention incessant television ads I'd seen since the 1960s for the volume labels (Guild, Gallo, Italian Swiss Colony, etc.). Anyone who remembers these milieus would be surprised at the assertions quoted above. Hoke even saw the interest from Texas, half a continent away. (E.g. Dallas is 1741 miles, 2804 km, from SF.)

* The same well-known Corti Bros. whose famous food-wine shop recently opted out of high-alcohol wines, whereafter a wine forum host far away, criticizing the move, added that he knew a bit about the California wine scene but had never heard of these folks. A good example of argument by Well-*I*-Never-Heard-Of-That!

** From when Inglenook was a leading varietal winery, before sale and later reputation for dating-bar "Chablis." I tasted both '55 and '65 Cabernets in the early 1980s, thanks to a local friend who bought them on release. They were among the superb Cabernets of that era that made California's current reputation. In 1981, the '55 Inglenook became famous for selling at the highest auction price then recorded for a California wine.

...California wine didn't have that high a profile even in California

... In 1976, I was living in California ... there was little awareness of California wines

I gather you folks were going to the wrong restaurants!

But why (on earth) point to a wine list from a Nevada tourist casino, rather than from California restaurants favored by locals? In the SF-Bay area in 1976, that might include the Blue Fox, Narsai's, Chez Panisse, etc., and good neighborhood places of lower profile.

Why point to a Nevada tourist casino winelist? Because that is all I have. But who are the diners in a Reno casino of the late 1970's?? 99% Californians on vacation. This list was aimed at normal Americans out to have a good time and push to boat out in a night club show.

Sure there were good restaurants with good California wines featured, but the majority of restaurants that Iwent to had California wines as the house wine (under a European geographical name) and as a small section at the bottom headed 'Domestic'. We were eating in restaurants for lunch and dinner every day, so the restaurants were mostly everyday ones, not special event ones.

Randy R's memories match mine.

In 1976, I was living in California and had been for years. At that time, in decent restaurants I had experiences that included restaurant staff pouring red wine into a glass that had some white remaining, no one knowing what Cabernet Sauvignon was and a basic "Reuniti on ice" mentality.

One restaurant we ordered a Cal Cab Sauv (we only ever drank California wines when we there) and it came ice cold with ice encrusted around the neck. I asked the waitress if she had one that wasn'tf rozen and whe said tha tthe manager insisted that all the wines were kept cold, but she offered to put the bottle in the dishwasker for a while to warm it.

She did, and we enjoyed it.