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.
Jancis Mary RobinsonOBE, ComMA, MW is a British wine critic, journalist and wine writer. She currently writes a weekly column for the Financial Times, and writes for her website JancisRobinson.com, updated daily. She provided advice for the wine cellar of Queen Elizabeth II.
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 Napa 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.
Stag's Leap Wine Cellars is a winery founded by Warren Winiarski in 1970 and based in the Stags Leap District of Napa Valley, California.
The garagistes refers to a group of winemakers in the Bordeaux region, producing "vins de garage", "garage wine". A group emerged in the mid-1990s in reaction to the traditional style of red Bordeaux wine, which is highly tannic and requires long ageing in the bottle to become drinkable. The garagistes developed a style more consistent with perceived international wine tastes.
Odette Kahn 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.
A wine competition is an organized event in which trained judges or consumers competitively rate different vintages, categories, and/or brands of wine. Wine competitions generally use blind tasting of wine to prevent bias by the judges.
Jon Winroth Broneer was an American wine critic who lived and worked in France.
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.
Dawnine Sample Dyer is an American winemaker and entrepreneur who pioneered the use of champagne-making methods in California's fledgling sparkling wine industry in the 1970s.
Hardy Rodenstock was a publisher and manager of pop and Schlager music in Germany and a prominent wine collector, connoisseur, and trader, with a special interest in old and rare wines. He became famous for his allegedly uncanny ability to track down old and very rare wines, and for arranging extravagant wine tastings featuring these wines. It has been alleged that Rodenstock was the perpetrator of an elaborate wine fraud. In 1992, a German court found that Rodenstock had "knowingly offered adulterated wine" for sale. On appeal, the case was settled out of court.
Bottle Shock is a 2008 American comedy-drama film based on the 1976 wine competition termed the "Judgment of Paris", when California wine defeated French wine in a blind taste test. It stars Alan Rickman, Chris Pine, and Bill Pullman and is directed by Randall Miller, who wrote the screenplay along with Jody Savin and Ross Schwartz. It premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
Tom Cannavan is a Scottish author and a wine journalist. He is considered a pioneer presence on internet of the British wine writing establishment.
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.
Somm is a 2012 American documentary following the attempts of four candidates to pass the extremely difficult Master Sommelier examination, a test with one of the lowest pass rates in the world. Directed by Jason Wise, a sequel, Somm: Into the Bottle, was released in 2015 and a third film, Somm 3, came out in October 2018. A TV series based on the movie launched on the Esquire Network in November 2015. In 2019, SOMM TV was launched by creator Jason Wise with original shows.
The Malibu Coast is an American Viticulture Area located in the Santa Monica Mountains of western Los Angeles County. The appellation is 46 miles long and eight miles wide, rising from the Pacific Coast to an elevation of 3,111 feet. The National Agricultural Statistics Service's "California Grape Acreage Report Crop 2015" documented the most widely planted varietals in Los Angeles County as Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Zinfandel, Merlot, and Chardonnay.
Somm: Into the Bottle is a 2015 wine documentary and a sequel to SOMM (2013). The film tells the story and history of wine through ten different bottles opened throughout the film in different chapters. Directed by Jason Wise, it premiered at the Napa Valley Film Festival and featured the main cast from the original SOMM film as well as additional notable people from the wine world.
The Marlborough wine region is by far New Zealand's largest, accounting for three quarters of the country's wine production, 70% of its vineyard area and 85% of its wine exports. A Geographical Indication in the north-east of the South Island, it covers the entire Marlborough District and the Kaikōura District of the Canterbury Region, but in practice the vineyards are concentrated around the Blenheim and Seddon townships. Internationally, Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc is recognised as world class; wine writers such as Oz Clarke and George Taber have described it as the best in the world.
SOMM TV is a food and wine streaming network launched in 2019.
