Judgment of Paris Reviews
Taster’s Choice
It was the most famous organized wine-tasting of all time, the moment when American wines beat out their supposedly better French rivals in a bland tasting by French judges...There is a big payoff in Taber’s research, and especially his felicitous writing style.
Orley Ashenfelter
Wine Spectator
The Sip Heard Round the WorldJudgment of Paris is one of the best books on California wine I’ve read.
James Laube
Newsweek
The Day California Won First PrizeA sprightly and definitive account [of the Paris Tasting] in a new book Judgment of Paris by the American writer George M. Taber, the only journalist who was there.
Jerry Adler
Harvard Business School: Working Knowledge
It is fascinating to read about the evolution of an industry. This book is a wonderful education on the California wine industry and is great entertainment to boot.
Manda Salls
Marin Independent Journal
One book, more than others, is both a great read and wonderfully informative. It is George Taber’s Judgment of Paris. No book in recent memory has generated more positive comment in the wine media than this involving tome, and certainly no book has caused my fellow writers more joy.
Charles Olken
Taster’s Choice
Barron’s, September 5, 2005It was the most famous organized wine-tasting of all time, the moment when Americans wines beat out their supposedly better French rivals in a blind tasting by French judges in France. And Taber , who was the only journalist present for that historic event in 1976, sets the record straight on several points. But his book is much more than just a story of a face-off.
In the same way that The Jackie Robinson Story is not just about baseball, Judgment of Paris also looks at the development of the California wine industry and of the personalities who made it happen. If ever a story about wine could rise above the ubiquitous "cooking, wine, and spirits' category and find a wider public, this is it.
Orley Ashenfelter
Judgment of Paris
Harvard Business School: Working Knowledge, October 31, 2005Just a few decades ago it would have been absurd to suggest that a California wine could match the quality of a French wine. But the landscape of the wine industry changed in 1976 when Steven Spurrier, the owner of a small Paris wine shop, sponsored a blind tasting of California and French wines. In this event, a series of white and red wines, vintage 1973, were sampled by some of the premier French wine experts of the time.
The story is told by George M. Taber, a reporter and editor for Time magazine for over twenty-five years. The tasting was expected to be such a clear win for France that Taber, then a young wine lover himself, was the only reporter to even attend the event. As the tasting progressed, he tells of his shock: "I had a list of the wines and realized that the judges were getting confused! They were identifying a French wine as a California one and vice versa." The event inspired wild speculation (for example, that the tasting took place under a portrait of Thomas Jefferson), bitter public reaction to the judges and Spurrier (some claimed that he falsified the results), and calls for the head of Inspector General of the Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée Board (a quality control and regulation position that oversees French wine making) to step down.
Manda Salls
Judgment of Paris:
California vs. France and the Historic 1976
Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine
Marin Independent Journal, December 14, 2005
I always think that a bottle of wine is the perfect gift that is unless you are looking for something for me. I have all the wine I will ever need, thank you, and my family has long since stopped searching out new and unusual wines that they hope will knock my socks off. Rather, I am more fascinated by wine books and related gifts than I am by wine, and if you have someone like that on your gift list or if you simply prefer to shop at Barnes and Noble rather than Cost Plus for your holiday treats, this column is for you.
Every year brings a new and increasing supply of books to your local word merchant, but I would consider this year to be one of the better vintages for books. And in the midst of this bounty, there is one book, more than others, that is both a great read and wonderfully informative. It is George Taber's "Judgment of Paris" [Scribner, $26]. No book in recent memory has generated more positive comment in the wine media than this involving tome, and certainly no book has caused my fellow writers more joy.
Charles Olken
The Day California Won First Prize
Newsweek, October 17, 2005Oct. 17, 2005 issue - In 1972, during the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to France, Steven Spurrier, a young English wine merchant in Paris, bought five cases of a Burgundy-style white from a vineyard in Hambledon, England, for a state dinner at the British Embassy. Just before the dinner, Spurrier was told that his wine could not be imported. The list of French customs duties had no category for English wine.
How amusant of the English to plant a vineyard, all the way on the far side of the channel! No doubt you could grow grapes in America, but the inhabitants would probably use them for jelly. So four years later, when Spurrier got the idea of a tasting to introduce his French friends to some of the California wines he'd been hearing about, he threw in a few Burgundies and Bordeaux for comparison. This might have been the first time that California and French wines went head to head in a major tasting, with nine experienced French judges: sommeliers, chefs, winemakers and critics. Knowing the French, Spurrier decanted the wines into anonymous bottles, because it was too much to expect them to be fair about another country's wines. Not that he expected, or even wanted, the imports to win. Spurrier didn't even sell California wines in his shop.
Jerry Adler
In the World of Fine Wine, There'll Always Be a France
The New York Times, July 5, 2006PERMIT me to speak briefly in praise of France.
Yes, France, the greatest wine producing nation in the world.
Don't look so shocked. I've heard about the Judgment of Paris, the famous blind tasting in which French and American wines went glass-to-glass in 1976, and the French lost. I know all about the greatness of California cabernets and shiraz from Australia, and I understand that the French lag in the clever global marketing of instantly recognizable brands of wine.
Nonetheless, no country comes close to matching France, either in setting demanding standards for its wine industry or in producing such a variety of consistently excellent wine. Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne and the Rhone go without saying, but those famous regions are simply the most visible. From Jurançon in the southwest to Jura in the east, from Nantes on the Atlantic to Alsace on the German border, France makes wines that are endlessly compelling and should be endlessly inspiring.
Eric Asimov
The Sip Heard Round the World
Wine Spectator, Thursday, September 8, 2005In "Judgment of Paris," George M. Taber describes his front seat to a revolution
Thirty years ago, as the U.S. prepared to celebrate its bicentennial, a showdown between French and Californian wines in Paris resulted in one of those "man bites dog" stories.
In a blind tasting, a panel of French experts compared Napa Valley Chardonnays with white Burgundies, and Napa Cabernet Sauvignons with red Bordeaux. The upstart Americans—"the kids from the sticks"—won both flights, led by a 1973 Chardonnay from Chateau Montelena (a blend of Napa and Alexander Valley grapes) and a 1973 Napa Valley Cabernet from Stag's Leap Wine Cellars.
The event might have gone unnoticed had it not been for the presence of George M. Taber, an American journalist in Paris working for Time magazine. Taber initially thought it absurd to compare France's finest wines with California unknowns.
James Laube
