Judgment of Paris

by George M. Taber

  Among the white wines, Steven Spurrier expected Burgundy’s Bâtard-Montrachet to place first overall in his tasting. He thought that by putting Château Haut-Brion and Château Mouton Rothschild among the red wines, he had guaranteed a French winner among the Cabernet Sauvignons.

  Chapter Nineteen

  A Stunning Upset

  A bottle of good wine, like a good act, shines ever in the retrospect.

  —ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

  Patricia Gallagher, Steven Spurrier, and Odette Kahn at the Paris Tasting

  May 24, 1976, was a beautiful, sunny day in Paris, and Patricia Gallagher was in good spirits as she packed up the French and California wines for the tasting at the InterContinental Hotel. Organizing the event had been good fun and easy compared with other events she and Steven had dreamed up. The good thing about working for Spurrier, she told friends, was that he was so supportive of her ideas. Many of their conversations began with her saying, “Wouldn’t it be fun…” To which he always replied, “Great. Let’s do it.” The two weren’t looking for fame or money. They were young people doing things strictly for the love of wine and to have fun.

  Gallagher packed the wine and all the paperwork into the back of the Caves de la Madeleine’s van and headed off with an American summer intern to the hotel. After the California wines had arrived on May 7 with members of the Tchelistcheff tour, they were stored in the shop’s cellar at a constant 54 degrees alongside the French wines for the event and the rest of Spurrier’s stock.

  Gallagher and the intern arrived at the hotel about an hour and a half before the 3:00 p.m. tasting was due to start. The event was to be held in a well-appointed room just off a patio bar in the central courtyard. Long, plush velvet curtains decorated the corners of the room. Glass doors opened onto the patio, and a gathering crowd watched the event from the patio. People sitting at small tables under umbrellas became increasingly curious about what was transpiring in the room, and some of them walked over to gaze through the windows much like visitors looking at monkeys in a zoo. The waiters set up a series of plain tables covered with simple white tablecloths, aligning the tables in a long row.

  Spurrier and Gallagher had previously decided that this would be a blind tasting, which meant that the judges would not see the labels on the bottles, a common practice in such events. They felt that not allowing the judges to know the nationality or brand of the wines would force them to be more objective. The two did not perceive the tasting as a Franco-American showdown, but it would have been too easy, they believed, for the judges to find fault with the California wines while praising only the French wines, if they were presented with labels.

  The hotel staff first opened all the red wines and then poured them into neutral bottles at Gallagher’s instructions. California wine bottles are shaped slightly differently from French ones, and this group of knowledgeable judges would have quickly recognized the difference. Gallagher was also giving the wines a chance to breathe a little by opening and decanting them, since the reds, in particular, were still relatively recent vintages. This practice helps young wines, which can sometimes be too aggressive, become more mellow and agreeable.

  An hour before the event, the hotel staff opened all the white wines, poured them also into neutral bottles and put them in the hotel’s wine cooler. Aeration was less important for the whites than it had been for the reds, but it would do no harm to have them opened in advance. Then a few minutes before the tasting, the waiters put the whites in buckets on ice, just as they would have done for guests in the dining room. The wine would now be at the perfect temperature for the judges.

  Only a half-hour before the event was to begin, Spurrier arrived. He wrote the names of the wines on small pieces of paper and asked the summer intern to pull the names out of a hat to determine the order in which the wines would be served. Then Spurrier and the others put small white labels on the bottles that read in French, for example, Chardonnay Neuf (Chardonnay Nine) or Cabernet Trois (Cabernet Three). With that done, everything was ready.

  The judges began appearing shortly before 3:00 p.m. and chatted amiably until all had arrived. Most of them knew each other from many previous encounters on the French wine circuit.

  Standing along the wall and acting self-conscious were two young Frenchmen in their mid-twenties. One was Jean-Pierre Leroux, who was head of the dining room at the Paris Sofitel hotel, an elegant rival, although not at the same level as the InterContinental. The other was Gérard Bosseau des Chouad, the sommelier at the Sofitel, who had learned about the tasting while taking a course at the Académie du Vin. Bosseau des Chouad had told Leroux about it, and the two of them had come to the hotel uninvited on a lark. They were quiet in awe of the assembled big names of French wine and cuisine. Since no one asked them to leave, they watched the proceedings in nervous silence.

  Shortly after 3:00, Spurrier asked everyone to give him their attention for a minute. Spurrier thanked the judges for coming and explained that he and Patricia Gallagher were staging the event to taste some of the interesting new California wines as part of the bicentennial of American independence and in honor of the role France had played in that historic endeavor. He explained that he and Patricia had recently made separate trips to California, where they had been surprised by the quality of the work being done by some small and unknown wineries. He said he thought the French too would find them interesting. Spurrier then said that although he had invited them to a sampling of California wines, in the tasting that was about to begin he had also included some very similar French wines. He added that he thought it would be better if they all tasted them blind, so as to be totally objective in their judgments. No one demurred, and so judges took their seats behind the long table, and the event began.

  The judges wore standard Paris business attire. Odette Kahn of theRevue du Vin de France was very elegant in a patterned silk dress accented with a double strand of opera-length pearls. Claude Dubois-Millot was the most casual with no tie or jacket. The other men were all more formally dressed, and Aubert de Villaine, who sat at the far right end of the table, wore a fashionable double-breasted suit. Patricia Gallagher and Steven Spurrier sat in the middle of the judges and participated in the tasting. Spurrier was next to Kahn.

  In front of each judge was a scorecard and pencil, two stemmed wine glasses, and a small roll. Behind them were several Champagne buckets on stands where they could spit the wine after tasting it, a common practice at such events since it would be impossible to drink all the wines without soon feeling the effect of the alcohol.

  Spurrier instructed the judges that they were being asked to rank the wines by four criteria—eye, nose, mouth, and harmony—and then to give each a score on the basis of 20 points. Eye meant rating the color and clarity of the wine; nose was the aroma; mouth was the wine’s taste and structure as it rolled over the taste buds; harmony meant the combination of all the sensations. This 20-point and four-criteria system was common in France at the time and had already been used by Spurrier and the others in many tastings.

  Despite Spurrier’s and Gallagher’s attempts to get press coverage, it turned out that I was the only journalist who showed up at the event. As a result, I had easy access to the judges and the judging. Patricia gave me a list of the wines with the tasting order so I could follow along. And although the judges didn’t know the identity of Chardonnay Neuf, for example, I did and could note their reactions to the various wines as they tasted them.

  The waiters first poured a glass of 1974 Chablis to freshen the palates of the judges. Following the tradition of wine tastings, the whites then went first. I looked at my list of wines and saw that the first wine (Chardonnay Un) was the Puligny-Montrachet Les Pucelles Domaine Leflaive, 1972.

  The nine judges seemed nervous at the beginning. There was lots of laughing and quick side comments. No one, though, was acting rashly. The judges pondered the wines carefully and made their judgments slowly. Pierre Tari at one moment pushed his nose deep into hi
s glass and held it there for a long time to savor the wine’s aroma.

  The judge’s comments were in the orchidaceous language the French often use to describe wines. As I stood only a few feet from the judges listening to their commentary, I copied into the brown reporter’s notebook that I always carried with me such phrases as: “This soars out of the ordinary,” and “A good nose, but not too much in the mouth,” and “This is nervous and agreeable.”

  From their comments, though, I soon realized that the judges were becoming totally confused as they tasted the white wines. The panel couldn’t tell the difference between the French ones and those from California. The judges then began talking to each other, which is very rare in a tasting. They speculated about a wine’s nationality, often disagreeing.

  Standing quietly on the side, the young Jean-Pierre Leroux was also surprised as he looked at the faces of the judges. They seemed both bewildered and shocked, as if they didn’t quite know what was happening. Raymond Oliver of the Grand Véfour was one of Leroux’s heroes, and the young man couldn’t believe that the famous chef couldn’t distinguish the nationality of the white wines.

  Christian Vannequé, who sat at the far left with Pierre Bréjoux and Pierre Tari at his left, was irritated that those two kept talking to him, asking him what he thought of this or that wine. Vannequé felt like telling them to shut up so he could concentrate, but held his tongue. He thought the other judges seemed tense and were trying too hard to identify which wines were Californian and which were French. Vannequé complained he wanted simply to determine which wines were best.

  When tasting the white wines, the judges quickly became flustered. At one point Raymond Oliver was certain he had just sipped a French wine, when in fact it was a California one from Freemark Abbey. Shortly after, Claude Dubois-Millot said he thought a wine was obviously from California because it had no nose, when it was France’s famed Bâtard-Montrachet.

  The judges were brutal when they found a wine wanting. They completely dismissed the David Bruce Chardonnay. Pierre Bréjoux gave it 0 points out of 20. Odette Kahn gave it just 1 point. The David Bruce was rated last by all the judges, and most of them dumped the remains from their glasses into their Champagne buckets after a cursory taste and in some cases after only smelling it. Robert Finigan had warned Spurrier and Gallagher that he’d found David Bruce wines at that time could be erratic, and this bottle appeared to be erratically bad. It was probably spoiled.

  After the white wines had all been tasted, Spurrier called a break and collected the scorecards. Using the normal procedure for wine tastings, he added up the individual scores and then ranked them from highest to lowest.

  Meanwhile the waiters began pouring Vittel mineral water for the judges to drink during the break. The judges spoke quietly to each other, and I talked briefly with Dubois-Millot. Even though he did not yet know the results, he told me a bit sheepishly, “We thought we were recognizing French wines, when they were California and vice versa. At times we’d say that a wine would be thin and therefore California, when it wasn’t. Our confusion showed how good California wines have become.”

  Spurrier’s original plan had been to announce all the results at the end of the day, but the waiters were slow clearing the tables and getting the red wines together and the program was getting badly behind schedule, so he decided to give the results of the white-wine tasting. He had been personally stunned and began reading them slowly to the group:

  Chateau Montelena 1973

  Meursault Charmes 1973

  Chalone 1974

  Spring Mountain 1973

  Beaune Clos des Mouches 1973

  Freemark Abbey 1972

  Bâtard-Montrachet 1973

  Puligny-Montrachet 1972

  Veedercrest 1972

  David Bruce 1973

  When he finished, Spurrier looked at the judges, whose reaction ranged from shock to horror. No one had expected this, and soon the whole room was abuzz.

  After hearing the results, I walked up to Gallagher. The French word in the winning wine’s name had momentarily thrown me. “Chateau Montelena is Californian, isn’t it?” I asked a bit dumbfoundedly.

  “Yes, it is,” she replied calmly.

  The scores of the individual judges made the results even more astounding. California Chardonnays had overwhelmed their French counterparts. Every single French judge rated a California Chardonnay first. Chateau Montelena was given top rating by six judges; Chalone was rated first by the other three. Three of the top four wines were Californian. Claude Dubois-Millot gave Chateau Montelena 18.5 out of 20 points, while Aubert de Villaine gave it 18. Chateau Montelena scored a total of 132 points, comfortably ahead of second place Meursault Charmes, which got 126.5.

  Spurrier and Gallagher, who were also blind tasting the wines although their scores were not counted in the final tally, were tougher on the California wines than the French judges. Spurrier had a tie for first between Freemark Abbey and Bâtard-Montrachet, while Gallagher scored a tie for first between Meursault Charmes and Spring Mountain.

  As I watched the reaction of the others to the results, I felt a sense of both awe and pride. Who would have thought it? Chauvinism is a word invented by the French, but I felt some chauvinism that a California white wine had won. But how could this be happening? I was tempted to ask for a taste of the winning California Chardonnay, but decided against it. I still had a reporting job to finish, and I needed to have a clear head.

  As the waiters began pouring the reds, Spurrier was certain that the judges would be more careful and would not allow a California wine to come out on top again. One California wine winning was bad enough; two would be treason. The French judges, he felt, would be very careful to identify the French wines and score them high, while rating those that seemed American low. It would perhaps be easier to taste the differences between the two since the judges knew all the French wines very well. The French reds, with their classic, distinctive and familiar tastes would certainly stand out against the California reds. All the judges, with the possible exception of Dubois-Millot, had probably tasted the French reds hundreds of times.

  There was less chatter during the second wave of wines. The judges seemed both more intense and more circumspect. Their comments about the nationality of the wine in their glass were now usually correct. “That’s a California, or I don’t know what I’m doing here,” said Christian Vannequé of La Tour d’Argent. I looked at my card and saw that he was right. It was the Ridge Monte Bello.

  Raymond Oliver took one quick sip of a red and proclaimed, “That’s a Mouton, without a doubt.” He too was right.

  Because of delays in the earlier part of the tasting, the hour was getting late and the group had to be out by 6:00 p.m. So Spurrier pushed on quickly after the ballots were collected. He followed the same procedure he had used for the Chardonnay tasting, adding up the individual scores of the nine judges.

  The room was hushed as Spurrier read the results without the help of a microphone:

  Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars 1973

  Château Mouton Rothschild 1970

  Château Montrose 1970

  Château Haut-Brion 1970

  Ridge Monte Bello 1971

  Château Léoville-Las-Cases 1971

  Heitz Martha’s Vineyard 1970

  Clos Du Val 1972

  Mayacamas 1971

  Freemark Abbey 1969

  This time the stir in the room was even more pronounced than before. A California wine had won again! Who would have believed it! The judges sat in disbelief. To confirm that I had heard Spurrier correctly, I walked up to Gallagher again and asked, “A California wine also won the red?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  The results for the Cabernet wines were much closer than for the Chardonnays. Château Haut-Brion got the most first place votes of all the reds: three. French wines were rated first, in some cases tied for first, by seven of the nine judges. Stag’s Leap was rated highly by most judges, but onl
y Odette Kahn put it first and Raymond Oliver had it in a tie for first. In sharp contrast to the results in the white wines, the French red wines also rated much better overall than the California reds. French wines took three of the top four positions, while California wines were relegated to the last four slots.

  Based on the overall scores, the results were very close for the red wines. There was only a five-and-a-

  half-point difference between the top four finishers. Stag’s Leap won by just a point and a half, with a total of 127.5, over second place Château Mouton Rothschild. But as the old saying goes, close only counts in horseshoes. Stag’s Leap was the winner that day. It was the judgment of Paris.

  Spurrier’s suspicion that the judges would attempt to identify the French wines and score them higher while rating the California ones low appears to have taken place. In the Cabernet competition the judges had a significantly wider scoring range than with the Chardonnays. The judges may have honestly felt the quality differences were that great, but they may also have been out to make sure a French wine won. Odette Kahn, for example, gave two wines (Clos Du Val and Heitz Martha’s Vineyard) only 2 points out of 20, one (Freemark Abbey) 5 points, and one (Ridge) 7 points. All her other Cabernet scores were double digits. But if she was trying to score California wines low, she didn’t succeed. Her first two highest scores went to California: Stag’s Leap and Mayacamas. Four other French judges also had the same pattern of rating several California wines in single digits, which is unusual in a fine wine tasting.

  The California reds did very well on Spurrier’s and Gallagher’s scoring cards. Spurrier in a moment of indecision had a four-way tie for first: Château Montrose, Château Mouton-Rothschild, Ridge, and Stag’s Leap. Gallagher gave first place to Heitz Martha’s Vineyard.