The Judgment of Napa: in celebration of Paris

Read more on The Judgment of Napa:

Clare Tooley MW’s reports on the blind tasting of Chardonnays and Cabernets

On the busiest day of harvest 2021 in the Napa Valley, 5 October felt like a party. A birthday, an anniversary, the celebration of time, place and purpose. A cast of smiling characters, protagonists and audience all enjoying the Californian wines that challenged the myth of supremacy and became icons in the process.

The only person missing was the leading man himself, Steven Spurrier, who left us in March of this year. Although, of course, he was undeniably there with us at every happy moment.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores of the historic wines served at The Judgment of Napa lunch

We saw his face on screen and pictures, heard his voice in interview and intimate conversation, and listened to the many moving personal tributes from those who knew him.

As we sipped some outstanding wines, we wondered whether they would have come to such glorious being without his influence. We cherished his memory in the Napa sunshine.

Beside the perpetual motion of the swinging pendulum at the heart of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, which marks time and the earth’s rotation, guest of honour Patricia Gallagher held a picture of Steven as she spoke.

He was her colleague in the Paris days of his wine shop and school, the Académie du Vin. She thanked the man who had not only listened to her idea of holding a comparative tasting but fully embraced it.

As an American in France in the 1970s, she had been embarrassed at the paucity of quality on offer from her home country and had simply wanted to show her French colleagues there was good wine being made in California.

It had seemed an uncomplicated request that appealed to Steven, well known to have started most of his sentences relating to wine work with ‘Wouldn’t it be fun if…’

Celebrating The Judgment of Paris

Much has been written, discussed and portrayed of that fateful day in Paris in 1976. As the years have passed, the initial sour grapes have sweetened, and the competition that was never meant to be a competition has become what Patricia and Steven always hoped it would be: a celebration of great places where great wine is made, carefully and respectfully, by great winemakers.

Years in the planning by Angela Duerr of Cultured Vine, The Judgment of Napa, on 5-6 October 2021, at long last provided that opportunity to celebrate and, with the benefit of hindsight, take stock of what came after that seminal moment in 1976.

Bo Barrett of Chateau Montelena summed it up best when he said the Paris tasting had encouraged the people in Napa and Sonoma, and throughout the wine world beyond France, ‘to make wine a little better’.

Marcus Notaro, winemaker at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, echoed the sentiment, saying The Judgment of Paris gave ‘direction and inspiration to the Valley’.

Far from ignoring or resting on the laurels of a one-off tasting held many thousand miles away, California winemakers and grape growers took up the baton handed to them that day and ran for their lives.

Raising glasses: from lunch to tasting

Their journey was showcased at the lunch held at the edge of Stag’s Leap’s Fay Vineyard. Each course was accompanied by subsequent vintages of the wines from estates that made that first flight, in suitcases from California to Paris, thanks to Joanne DePuy.

Chateau Montelena’s Chardonnay shone brightly, paving the way for a trio of Cabernets. We revelled in Freemark Abbey’s beauty, Stag’s Leap’s elegance and Clos du Val’s luxuriance (see tasting notes).

Fanned by the Bay breeze that makes Stag’s Leap the ‘goldilocks zone’ for Cabernet, we listened to the current winemakers introducing their wines. We applauded the presentation of a special California Legislature Resolution to Patricia, Steven and Time Magazine‘s George Taber (the only journalist at the 1976 tasting), represented at these events by his son Dan.

There was also a tutored tasting of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars’ SLV Cabernet, spanning four decades.

The second day of celebrations was held at Charles Krug winery, where we were greeted by a jazz band and a fleet of Rolls Royces – a nod to Steven’s Britishness.

We raised glasses of Steven and Bella Spurrier’s Bride Valley English Sparkling and sang the Burgundian toast, led by Jean-Charles Boisset dressed in vibrant blue, a friend of Steven’s and distributor of his wine in the US.

The main event was a reenactment of the famous Paris tasting – updated to embrace wines beyond California and France, and given a Hollywood swagger and dramatic staging.

There was a blind tasting of 10 world-class Chardonnays and 10 equally deluxe Cabernet Sauvignons, ranked and eventually revealed à la original Paris Judgment. Interspersed were video montages, commentary and interviews introduced by Master Sommelier Andrea Robinson.

Moving tributes

I was on the panel of expert judges so on a professional level, it was a privilege for me to be ‘in the room where it happened’: to taste with my peers and to listen to the tributes made by outstanding women and men.

On a personal level, I found the day’s events immensely moving. I was moved particularly by Patricia. She has a sonorous voice and a quality of calm and grace that must have been well suited to Steven’s equally sanguine, generous and gentle debonair élan.

I had the pleasure of meeting Steven many times, but this was my first glimpse of Patricia. Amid the jazz, razzamatazz, dry ice, fireworks, streamers, lights, cameras and tasting action, it was Patricia who brought a certain grace to the proceedings, reminding us all, judges and onlookers alike, that the initial event had been an altruistic gesture.

‘We did it with our hearts – no second thoughts, we just did it,’ she said. She urged us all to continue what they had started. She was compelling and I believe we caught a glimpse right there of how she must have floated the original idea to Steven in Paris and how impossible it must have been not to leap to it.

We were treated to the recording of a three-way Zoom call between Patricia, Steven and George, completed just weeks before Steven’s death, thanks to Angela Duerr’s tenacity and deep-seated desire to bring the tribute together.

They spoke about the stars aligning that day in Paris. Most striking perhaps, and emotive, was their humility. The stars were indeed aligned, yet they seemed as unaware now as they were then, that they were the stars in question.

Remembering Steven Spurrier

While their actions were pivotal, changing the profile and perception of New World wines forever, their vision was simple: to search and reveal intrinsic value.

Not a competition then, not a competition now they insisted. Rather an exercise in finding, addressing and redressing balance – which is also that most vital of components and the secret to absolute quality in a wine, according to Ridge Vineyards’ Paul Draper.

As the only winemaker from the original tasting, there was a real frisson in the Charles Krug barrel cellar when Paul himself made his way to the front. We all stood to mark his entrance. He took to the podium to add his thanks, and his might, to the day.

He read Bella Spurrier’s letter of thanks to us on behalf of her late husband. She too had been in the room that day in 1976, as official photographer. She told us Steven had been looking forward very much to The Judgment of Napa and the opportunity to celebrate California-style. He may well have been rather overwhelmed by the attention, but she knew ‘his eloquence would have carried him through’.

Time, of course, waits for no man. We mourned Steven’s absence while celebrating his influence. The Judgment of Napa, however, also allowed us the opportunity to smile in the face of time, raise glasses to its passing and its present, and recognise the abundance that one single day can generate over a lifetime and more.

It was a wonderful party and yes, Steven, it was marvellous fun.

The Judgment of Napa: historic wines at a vineyard lunch

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