David Bruce Winery is a California winery located at about 2,200 feet (670 m) elevation in the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA above Silicon Valley in Northern California. It was established by dermatologist David Bruce, M.D., in 1964 about a mile away from the Martin Ray Vineyard that often appears on vineyard designated wines from David Bruce. The vineyard achieved international visibility when one of the winery's Chardonnays was featured in the 1976 wine tasting competition that became known as the Judgment of Paris. Today the winery specializes in Pinot noir.
The Paris Wine Tasting of 1976, also known as the Judgment of Paris, was a wine competition organized in Paris on 24 May 1976 by Steven Spurrier, a British wine merchant and his colleague, Patricia Gallagher, in which French judges carried out two blind tasting comparisons: one of top-quality Chardonnays and another of red wines. A Californian wine rated best in each category, which caused surprise as France was generally regarded as being the foremost producer of the world's best wines. Spurrier sold only French wine and believed that the California wines would not win.
Steven Spurrier was a British wine expert and merchant who was described as a champion of French wine. Spurrier organised the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976, which unexpectedly elevated the status of California wine and promoted the expansion of wine production in the New World. He was the founder of the Academie du Vin and Christie's Wine Course, in addition to authoring and co-authoring several wine books.
Mayacamas Vineyards is a California wine producer located in the Mt. Veeder AVA in the Mayacamas Mountains within the Napa Valley AVA, bordering the Sonoma Valley AVA. The estate is known for producing wine of a more traditional style than the Napa trends of recent years that emphasizes power, weight, high levels of alcohol and extravagance.
The New York Wine Tasting of 1973 was organized by pioneering wine journalist Robert Lawrence Balzer. He assembled 14 leading wine experts including France's Alexis Lichine, who owned two chateaux in Bordeaux, a manager of the Four Seasons restaurant in New York City, and Sam Aaron, a prominent New York wine merchant. They evaluated 23 Chardonnays from California, New York, and France in a blind tasting before an assemblage of 250 members of the New York Food and Wine Society. California Chardonnays received the top four scores. Fifth place went to the 1969 Beaune Clos des Mouches Joseph Drouhin. Other French wines in the competition were the 1970 Corton-Charlemagne Louis Latour, the 1971 Pouilly-Fuisse Louis Jadot, and the 1970 Chassagne-Montrachet Marquis de Laguiche Joseph Drouhin.
Pierre Brejoux was Inspector General of the Appellation d'Origine Controlee Board, which controls the production of top French wines. he served as an expert wine taster in the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976. In the blind tasting, California wines won both the red and white wine categories. After the tasting, there were many calls for him to resign his position as Inspector General because so many people and groups were highly displeased with the results. He later revealed to George Taber that he traveled to California in 1974 and 'learned a lot - to my surprise...'. Brejoux also authored several books on French wine.
Michel Dovaz is a Swiss wine critic and food writer. He started his career as a journalist in Paris, France and later taught wine courses at the Academie du Vin in Paris when he served as a judge at the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976. He subsequently wrote several books on French wine as well as the chapter on Champagne for the Guide Hachette des Vins.
The Académie du Vin was established in Paris in 1973 by Steven Spurrier as France's first private wine school. It is associated with the 1976 Judgement of Paris blind wine tasting which brought international recognition to California wines and viticulture in the New World.
Odette Kahn (1923–1982) was a leading authority on wine and editor of the La Revue du vin de France and of Cuisine et Vins de France. She was a judge at the historic Paris Wine Tasting of 1976. Kahn was outraged at the results of the tasting, unsuccessfully demanded her ballot back, refused later to speak to organizer Steven Spurrier after the event, claimed fraud, and wrote disparagingly about the wine competition. This event was later portrayed in the movie Bottle Shock.
Pierre Tari was owner of Château Giscours and from 1975 to 1989 President of the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux, the organization of the wine classified in the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855. He served as an expert taster in the historic Judgment of Paris wine competition.
Christian Vannequé was a French sommelier and restaurateur.
Aubert de Villaine is a social economist and co-owner and co-director of the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. Some of the world's most expensive wines are produced on several of its approximately 50-acre (20 ha) vineyard holdings in Vosne-Romanée and Montrachet. He was originally co-director with Lalou Bize-Leroy, both having inherited their ownership. However disagreements over the direction of the estate, led to Bize-Leroy's expulsion from the management and her replacement by her nephew.
Jean-Claude Vrinat was the owner of the Taillevent restaurant founded by his father André Vrinat in Paris. This two star restaurant, named after the court chef to King Charles V in the fourteenth century, has long been considered the epitome of Haute Cuisine and is also known for its excellent service and its comprehensive wine list. It held three stars from 1973 to 2007.
James L. Barrett was an American businessman and the owner of Chateau Montelena which won the Chardonnay competition of the 1976 Judgment of Paris wine tasting.
Patricia Gastaud-Gallagher was a director at the Académie du Vin, a impetus, with Steven Spurrier, behind the 1976 Judgment of Paris wine tasting event and participated as one of its eleven judges. She was also on the Copia panel that oversaw the rematch on The Judgment of Paris 30th Anniversary. She is one of the few non-French natives to have won the distinguished Chevalier du Mérite Agricole given for distinguished service to the French Wine industry. She was also academic director and director of the wine department of the famous LE CORDON BLEU school of cuisine and pastry. She is a co-author of the book Le Cordon Bleu Wine Essentials: Professional Secrets to Buying, Storing, Serving, and Drinking Wine. Patricia is featured in the film 'Judgement of Paris' set to premiere on SOMM TV in May 2022, from the creators of the Somm (film) series, to tell the true story of the 1976 wine tasting.
Claude Dubois-Millot was sales director of the Gault Millau restaurant guide and served as one of the eleven judges of the historic Judgment of Paris wine tasting. He was the only judge on the all-French panel that did not have previous experience in wine competition after spending the majority of his career in the automobile industry prior to joining GaultMillau in 1973. Originally his brother, the food critic Christian Millau, was slated to be on the panel but Claude served as a substitute.*
Bo Barrett is the current winemaker of Chateau Montelena. He is the son of Jim Barrett, under whose ownership the 1973 vintage Chardonnay won first place among white wines at the 1976 Judgment of Paris wine tasting. Barrett was an assistant during that vintage, working under the tutelage of Mike Grgich. He is married to Heidi Barrett, former wine maker at Screaming Eagle Winery and Vineyards.
A.W. Baxter was a Californian winemaker who founded Veedercrest Vineyards which competed in the Judgment of Paris wine tasting. The Veedercrest entrant was Baxter's first commercial vintage Chardonnay. He began buying grapes and making wine in the basement of his home in the Berkeley hills. He then acquired land on Mt. Veeder in Napa and planted a vineyard of Cabernet Sauvignon funded by selling limited partnership shares. Eventually the wine making volume outgrew his home and at the suggestion of one of the limited partners, C. R. Nelson, he moved his winemaking to a thick walled concrete building at the by then closed Shell Shell Development Companies' Emeryville research lab. The business failed when the winery's distributor dropped prices to work off excess inventory. His wife Gail Fleming was one of the 25 people who died in the 1991 Oakland firestorm
David Ralph Bennion (1929-1988) was a leading California winemaker who was the founder and winemaker at Ridge Vineyards in California from 1959 to 1969. From an early period, Bennion labeled Ridge Vineyards wines by vineyard, district and appellation, a first for California Zinfandel and a practice later followed by nearly every winery in the state. Ridge's flagship wine, Monte Bello is considered one of the great wines of the world.
The Judgment of Princeton was a wine tasting event held on 8 June 2012 during a conference of the American Association of Wine Economists held at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. The purpose of this event was to compare, by a blind tasting, of several French wines against wines produced in New Jersey in order to gauge the quality and development of the New Jersey wine industry. Because New Jersey's wine industry is relatively young and small, it has received little attention in the world wine market. The state's wine production has experienced growth in recent years largely as a result of state legislators offering new opportunities for winery licensing and repealing Prohibition-era laws that have constrained the industry's development in past years. This event was modeled after a 1976 blind tasting event dubbed the "Judgment of Paris" in which French wines were compared to several wines produced in California when that state's wine industry was similarly young and developing. The New Jersey wine industry heralded the results and asserted that the rating of New Jersey wines by the blind tasting's judges was a victory for the state's wine industry.
