The trial of Paris is, for the enlightened reader, an outstanding episode in Greek mythology that ended up causing the Trojan War. Zeus chooses the Trojan prince Paris to act as judge in the dispute between the goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite to see who is the most beautiful. And from that mess of divine egos came one of the most notorious war conflicts of Antiquity. A recurring motif in the work of many great masters of the brush, perhaps you remember the pictorial representations of Lucas Cranach the Elder, Renoir, Cezanne or that of Rubens that can be seen in the Prado Museum.
For wine fans, however, the Paris trial – written with an accent, because it is the French capital – is the historic event in which proud France lost the media supremacy of world wine. A blind tasting organized in May 1976, with some of the world's leading experts as jurors, in which the best white and red wines from California and the Hexagon competed against each other with an unexpected result: the Americans won in both categories. And the myth of the greats castles y areas He was never the same again...
For some time now, I have been asked a recurring question: is French wine still the best in the world? It is a tricky question, since those who ask it almost always expect me to launch into a patriotic defense of the Spanish vineyard and list the enormous progress made by bullskin winegrowers in recent decades. But I don't usually snack.
Of course, France has been and still is one of the great world wine powers. Not only because of the number of wineries that have been among the planetary elite for a couple of centuries, but because they still manage the story of the landscape and the country people like no one else: call it grandcru, "terroir", biodynamics, vinnature or whatever happens on each occasion... They are at least 100 years ahead of us in the classification of their terroirs and the promotion of their gastronomy and their savoir vivre.
Although today great wines are made everywhere, so that a bottle becomes an object of desire and a symbol of luxury, so that it reaches astronomical prices and enters the product category aspirational, it is not enough to obtain the desired 100 Parker points from the American magazine Wine Advocate. It takes generations cultivating the legend. And in that, without discussion, our neighbors take the cake.
However, on May 24, 1976, the year of the Bicentennial, the 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon from Stag'sLeap and the 1973 Chardonnay from Montelena prevailed, against all odds, in a test that included a court of wise men beyond all suspicion: Parisian restaurant owners Taillevent (Jean-Claude Vrinat) and Le Grand Vefour (Raymond Olivier), the sommelier of Tower of money (Christian Vannequé), the owners of illustrious wineries such as Romanée-Conti (Aubert de Villaine) or ChâteauGiscours (Pierre Tari), the publisher of The French Wine Review… That is the greatness – and humility – of the hidden label tasting.
On March 9, the driving force behind that tremendous mess, Steven Spurrier, died at his home in Dorset (United Kingdom). He was 79 years old and had dedicated his entire life to wine: first, as a merchant and teacher; then, as a consultant and specialized journalist; finally, as a writer and winemaker. Always, with commendable phlegm and discretion, a touch of English humor and friendly manners gentleman from another era.
«I am often asked what I am most proud of in my life, in the world of wine, and I always answer that it was the creation, in 1973, of L'Academie du Vin: the first private wine school in France," he recalls in his book Wine: A WayofLife (2018), a mix of autobiographical diary and anthology of reflections on the sector. Of course, Spurrier tricks himself into solitaire, since The Judgment of Paris was the event that served to publicize and consolidate the reputation of that ambitious educational project.
His love affair with wine went back a long way: "At the age of 13, after a Christmas Eve dinner at our family home in Derbyshire, my paternal grandfather decided that he was old enough to have a glass of Port," he says in his memories. "What is this?" asked young Steven after tasting that nectar. “It's a Vintage 1908 Cockburn, boy,” Grandpa replied. And this is how vocations are created.
For his twenty-first birthday, his maternal grandmother gave him membership in TheWineSociety and a wine rack for 12 bottles. A few years earlier, traveling with his parents, a teenage Spurrier had discovered the good life of the bistros and Inns of France and Italy, "who embodied that civilized attitude of sharing a bottle of wine, compared to the grayness of post-war England."
Then came the London School of Economics – where he immediately joined the Wine Club –, his first job at Christopher & Co, the winemerchant oldest in London, and the decision to go to Provence in 1968 (two decades before the novelist Peter Mayle!), taken on the same day as his wedding to Bella, after inheriting a considerable sum from the sale of a family business. Two years later, they moved to Paris to live in a barge anchored in the Seine and buy a wine shop in the 8th arrondissement, called La Cave de la Madeleine, which began by advertising in the International Herald Tribune with the claim: “Your wine merchant speaks English.”
Those were the times when the recreational circuit of Anglo-Saxons with limited language skills who visited the city of light passed through the bookstore. Shakespeare and Co on rue de la Bûcherie, the cocktail bar Harry's New York Bar on rue Daunou – where the Bloody Mary and the Sidecar were invented – and, a stone's throw from the latter, Spurrier's little winery with its attached academy, which hoarded truly dreamy bottles at reasonable prices.
At that time, he came up with the brilliant idea of the Judgment of Paris, going around Napa Valley to taste the wines of the most prestigious wineries in the area. It was about putting together a Californian team qualitative enough to compete with Gallic monsters from Bordeaux and Burgundy such as Mouton-Rothschild, Montrose, Haut-Brion, Léoville-Las Cases, Ramonet, Roulot or Leflaive. That was a real adventure, since the rude winegrowers of Napa welcomed the dapper British dandy like crazy, according to the book by George Taber – a former student of the academy. Judgment of Paris: California vs France and the historical 1976 tasting that revolutionized wine (2006).
An adventure that had an unexpected end when the Americans beat the Old World with single-varietal wines made from French grapes and an absolutely chauvinistic jury, who could barely believe the results of the votes cast. It matters little that the newspapers Le Figaro y Le Monde They later published two articles considering the tournament unworthy of credit and absolutely laughable. The event had already raised international doubt about the French hegemony, granting letters of nobility to the new and thriving Californian winery class, with Heitz, Ridge, Mayacamas, Chalone and Spring Mountains completing the victorious squad. And something similar happened, three years later, when the Spanish red Torres Mas La Plana 1970 (DO Penedés) beat the most illustrious cabernets in the Wine Olympiad organized by the monthly magazine Gault et Millau. But that is another story…
Ours was even made into a film by Randall Miller in 2008, under the title Bottle Shock, with the great Alan Rickman playing the role of Steven. The first script for it was signed by the founders of the Sonoma Valley Film Festival and the film ended up being premiered – to good reviews – at the renowned Sundance Independent Film Festival. So little joke.
That major event, which revolutionized the perception of New World wines in the foreign market, giving the French a necessary bath of humility, would not, however, save our hero from the bankruptcy of his Parisian businesses at the end of the 80s. .
Back in the City, he agreed to head the wine department at Harrods, but he did not last long at the luxury giant due to disagreements with Mohamed Al Fayed. They just fired him when he coincided at a professional event with the director of Decanter, Sarah Kemp, who immediately recruited him to collaborate in the prestigious magazine, directing tastings and writing a monthly column that last year had already exceeded 300 installments.
His penultimate bet had been to found the Bride Valley Vineyard winery, dedicated to sparkling wine, on a hill in front of his home in Dorset. “Welcome to the club,” Baron Eric de Rothschild (ChâteauLafite) greeted him upon learning about the project. "I felt more like a poacher turned gamekeeper," he liked to remember wryly.
On May 24, 2006, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of “the tasting that changed the world of wine,” Steven himself organized a tasting on both sides of the Atlantic with the same wines. The Copia museum in Napa Valley and the century-old London store Berry Bros. & Rudd hosted international tasters, many of whom had participated in the original event.
"Although some French members of the jury predicted the decline of American reds, in the end they had to admit that the harmony of Californian Cabernets had beaten them again," read the newspaper's chronicle. The Times. On this occasion, the winner was the Ridge Monte Bello 1971 (Santa Cruz Mountains), followed by Stag'sLeapWineCellars 1973, Mayacamas 1971 and HeitzMartha'sVineyard 1970. The best French red, Mouton-Rothschild 70, only reached sixth place. Spurrier must still be laughing in the afterlife...
Juan Manuel Bellver, Academic
Published in The Objective, March 14, 2021
