Patrick Cappiello and a few other somms are doing a redo of the 1976 Judgement of Paris tasting to promote US wines and showcase. And to see if new American wines can hold up still. He asked me to post about it here for engagement.
Four varieties are allowed: Cab, Syrah, Chard and Chenin. All wineries are allowed to submit 1 entry per variety. Admission fee is a reasonable at $15 and deadline is end of May.
Should be interesting!
interesting, are they going to have the same french producers to compare against?
I believe itās impossible to go āback in timeā and truly āredoā this.
Is the goal to see if American wines can out-French the French wines? And what āstandardsā are being used to do this. And is he getting a number of French somms to join in as well?
As we see here on this board in particular, itās very very challenging to truly compare and contrast wines made here with their French counterparts - period. Are there āexceptionsā? Of course . . .
Will be interested to hear what others think.
Cheers
I mean, itās going to profoundly difficult to do so if theyāre letting people submit all these wines. Iām not sure how youād even do that.
As far as the other thing though, Iām not sure itās that difficult to compare wines, blind tasting seems like a relatively even comparison.
I donāt think the methodology of the initial judgement was bad.
Weāve done a number of head to head oregon vs burg events in the last couple years which have been fun.
I know very little, but Iām assuming there will be a panel that picks out the best of the US entries and the best of the French entries and then blind the winners against each other.
I can understand what Patrick is doing here, but totally agree with Larry. We will never carve out our own space if we constantly try to compare ourselves to the French and Italians. I love domestic wines for all the things they are not as it relates to the old world wines. They fill a different void and that is what makes them wonderful.
This prompted me to go look at the results.
In the reds, the Bordeauxs mostly trumped the Napa wines. It was the Stagās Leap ranking #1 that was the headline-grabber. But its score was just a shade above those of Mouton, Haut-Brion and Montrose.
After that there was a big drop-off in points before the Ridge at #5. And the Leoville (#6) was a '71 ā not nearly as strong a vintage as '70 ā and still ranked well above the remaining Californians.
We did this in Copenhagen in 206 on the 30th Anniversary. I brought a case of Cali wine and the Danes (Voodoo, Lord Rodney and friends) brought French wines of the same grapes. Not the same wines or wineries at in 1976. I did not bring particularly expensive stuff. I will have to search through my records to see if I can identify exactly what I brought, but I know that there were a few bottles of Pax 1.0, some Loring and Dumol, and at least one bottle of pinot, possibly from Oregon, that was sent to me by the winemaker.
To be polite, the French wines never had a chance. There are a handful of wineries in the US where the owner has told me that his largest overseas sales are in Denmark and he has no idea why. It was that event, and they fell in love with the wines.
BTW - I just looked at the exact line up of the wines at the original 1976 event. I think we would all agree that the wine choices were slanted in favor of the French producers. Mouton, Haut Brion, Montrose and LLC. You can see all the details here: Judgment of Paris (wine) - Wikipedia.
Patrick has lots of explanation on his Instagram if people care to actually hear from him rather than make idle speculation.
Except that in those days first growth Bordeaux from a good year like '70 wasnāt meant to be drunk at year 6.
Itās interesting that the three-year-old Stagās Leap edged out the five- and six-year-old wines.
Itāll be interesting to see how they select the European wines.
@TomHill was there from the beginning in 200
Those 1970 Bordeaux were hard as nails. Mouton did not show nicely for about another two decades, IIRC. As for Montrose,read Jeff Leveās note on CT 7/2007.
Stagās Leapās reputation has been softer more approachable Cabs.
Didnāt SommTV do another one of these in NYC?
Sounds like a fun event!
They did, but it was a totally different set of New World and French Pinot Noirs tasted blind and scored by a panel of New York city sommeliers and then separately tasted blind and scored by Jancis Robinson, Steve Spurrier, and Fred Dame in Paris. Both panels separately picked the 2014 Domaine De La Cote Bloomās Field as the number one wine.
Please do let us know what wines you brought if you can find the records. Iām super curious.
woohoo! SF Harris syrah in the running! (it is, right???)
Boring. This feels as tired as a Disney remake. Thereās no need to rehash the original Judgment of Paris. It was a moment in history and should stay that way. Also, if he wanted to use that as a cultural touchstone, 2026 would be a much better year since the 50th anniversary would at least have some minimal meaning instead of four dozen years later.
It seems to me that this is preaching to the choir. Heās recruited experts to taste high end wines and do an āus vs. themā tasting. I donāt see why this is interesting content. Since 1976, there is no shortage of wine experts, wine publications, and now wine influencers (Patrick himself included, and I follow him and like his content) who spout off their opinions, ratings, and reviews. I think the regular person couldnāt care less about this, and ultimately itās just going to move a little money from one produce to another. The real missed opportunity here is having non experts taste and experience and promote the wines. How much advertising and money did Opus One make because Lebron James had an open bottle at the game a couple of nights ago? The effort would be much more compelling to the occasional wine drinker and person of means. I get that getting an A list celebrity to do this would be expensive and difficult, but there are articles out there about how pro athletes and other entertainers are in to wine, and at least a few might be willing to participate in a fun wine event.
But maybe all publicity is good publicity, even if it means robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Didnāt submit! Too much great competition!
I thought it tied with the 15 angerville.
Anyways it was a stupid event that meant nothing because they were just choosing arbitrary (and young) wines.