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Der Speigel: France Suffers a California Smackdown
Oops, they did it again. Judges in a rematch of a 1976 blind taste test between French and Californian wines have handed the laurels to California for a second time. The French wine industry gnashes its teeth.Thirty years ago, nine French wine experts shocked the world -- and themselves -- when they ranked certain California wines above their French counterparts in a blind taste test that came to be called, notoriously, "The Judgment of Paris." The French defended their belles dames at the time by sniping that the young west-coast wines wouldn't age well. "Our wines will improve with time," they sniffed. So the Briton who organized the Paris contest mounted a thirtieth-anniversary re-enactment on Wednesday in London and California, to see how time had treated the wines. Results? In brief: California smacks down France -- again! "I'm very impressed," said Christian Vannequé, a French judge who was at the original contest, as well as the tasting in California. "I don't know if I will be able to go back to France. After a second time, they will kill me." Wednesday's event was billed as a "celebration" of the Judgment of Paris, not a rematch. But the results were hard to ignore. The combined judgment of this year's tasters put five California cabernets on top, led by a 1971 Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet Sauvignon from the Santa Cruz Mountains. (Thirty years ago it came in fifth.) The top wine in 1976 -- a 1973 Stags Leap Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon, from Napa Valley -- came in second. The four slots below the Californians this year were occupied by French wines from Bordeaux, including a 1970 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild. [..] Posted by: 3dc 2006-05-25 |
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