The Judgment of Paris, 50 Years On: What’s Next?

By WineBottleMag
April 20, 2026
Judgment Paris Whats Years
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In the 1970s, French wines were revered in America, but only by an elite few. This same class of wine lovers also considered their homegrown offerings to be something of a joke.

Then, on May 24th 1976, a blind tasting competition in France dubbed “The Judgment of Paris” pitted northern Californian wines against French equivalents. California triumphed, propelling the wines, their producers, and Napa Valley onto the world wine stage, while proving to both global critics and domestic drinkers alike that the United States was capable of fine wine greatness.

The event kickstarted a golden age of vine plantings and wine-growing in California, reviving an industry that had for decades struggled to recover from the blows of early 20th-century recession, war, and Prohibition.

“[The Judgment] opened the door for great wine to be from anywhere,” says Jon Bonné, author of The New French Wine and The New California Wine.

50 years later, California—and American wine in general—face a new set of challenges that are far more complicated than a rivalry between “Old World” and “New World.”

A half century on from the tasting that changed the fate of American wine, the industry is primed for a new kind of judgment, one that, however it shakes out, will once again determine the future of homegrown wine.

Just like five decades ago, many of California’s winemakers are struggling to get their wines into Americans’ glasses. The oversupply in 2024-25 led to nearly 40,000 acres of California’s vines being ripped out. 3,000 of these acres were in Napa, equating to 7% of the region’s total plantings, according to a recent study.

Climate change, tariff wars, health debates, and geopolitical instability all contribute to today’s perfect storm. And as beverage choices increase, the competition is no longer just between Europe and the nations it colonized. Instead, it’s between wine and other alcoholic drinks (not to mention the N/A ones). The sandbox has never been more crowded.

Meanwhile, the sheer diversity of wine styles and overall quality have never been greater.

“If I sit down at a wine bar in San Francisco, I can choose between biodynamic Bordeaux pét-nat made in Libourne, and qvevri-macerated Friulano from the Sierra Foothills,” says Bonné. “I’d say we have moved into a very different and more interesting world.”

The world may be more interesting, but also more perilous. A half century on from the tasting that changed the fate of American wine, the industry is primed for a new kind of judgment, one that, however it shakes out, will once again determine the future of homegrown wine.

A 20th-Century Reckoning

In the years leading up to 1976, California was still struggling to re-establish its wine industry after Prohibition had decimated it.

“The American wine business in the 1950s was literally dying in the vine. The number of California wineries fell by more than one third between 1950 and 1967,” George M. Taber wrote in his 2005 book, Judgment of Paris. (Taber, in fact, was the sole journalist present at the Judgment tasting.) “Only a very small part of the population drank wine with meals, and when they wanted good wine, they looked to France.”

1976 marked America’s bicentennial anniversary. It was the year Jimmy Carter was elected president, and Barbara Walters became the first female anchorwoman for an evening news program. Steve Jobs founded Apple, Bill Gates founded Microsoft just the year prior, and American consumerism charged forth.

“As the U.S. started to become ‘the great consumer,’ we began to latch onto wine,” says Patrick Cappiello, the winemaker-owner of Monte Rio Cellars in Sonoma County and a former New York sommelier. “We followed the lead of the British, and so Bordeaux was one of the first and most important regions [for Americans]. Burgundy followed on.”

Viticultural and winemaking techniques had been quietly improving throughout the 1950s and ‘60s, with help from the Department of Viticulture and Enology at University of California Davis. Technological advancements like controlled malolactic fermentation and micro-filtration were actually ahead of the French, according to Taber. By 1976, there were around 100 wineries established in Napa Valley. Word was out—albeit only at a whisper—that the Californians were making some pretty decent wine.

Enter Steven Spurrier, an English wine merchant and owner of the English-speaking Parisian wine school, Académie Du Vin, and his trusty right-hand woman, American Patricia Gallagher. The pair decided to stir up business by hosting a blind tasting between the two nations, timed with the bicentennial anniversary. Spurrier travelled to California to choose the six Chardonnays and six Cabernet Sauvignons from 11 boutique producers that French judges would blind-taste beside top Bordeaux wines from the likes of Château Mouton-Rothschild and Château Haut-Brion.

California won.

Taber released a Time article a few weeks later announcing America’s triumph over its French counterparts. He titled it “The Judgment of Paris,” a nod to the Greek mythological event that sparked The Trojan War. The name stuck and the two California wineries whose wines won—Chateau Montelena’s 1973 Chardonnay and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars’ 1973 S.L.V. Cabernet Sauvignon (only their second and first releases, respectively)—became overnight successes. So did other high-ranking California wineries like Ridge Vineyards and Spring Mountain Vineyard. In fact, all of Napa rode the wave.

“It is no coincidence that the first vintage of ‘Opus One,’ the Napa Valley joint venture between Philippe de Rothschild and Robert Mondavi, was 1979, just three years later,” Spurrier himself wrote in a September 2020 article on the Académie du Vin Library website, just six months before his death in 2021.

“[The Judgement] gave Napa Valley real direction, including us,” says Marcus Notaro, Stag’s Leap’s current head winemaker. “Where are we going to be most successful? In Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. It gave us identity, direction, and confidence that we were on the right track.”

Matthew Crafton, the current head winemaker and president at Chateau Montelena, agrees: “It gave credibility to a region that hadn’t yet earned it in the eyes of the world and opened the door for American wines to be considered among the best anywhere.”

The Judgment was a perfect storm. It reset the tumblers at a moment when the French had let down their guard, the Californians were surging, and Americans still viewed France as a gastronomic north star. So that set the conditions for homegrown wines to find their market.

Jon bonné, author of The New French Wine and The New California Wine.

France, of course, had been making wine since the Greek and Roman times, with the transition from shed to chateau taking place in the 19th century. But the ‘70s were tough times, especially for Bordeaux: overproduction, poor vintage conditions, and a general complacency, according to Bonné, led to a decline in quality, while California’s star was rising.

“The sheer talent and quality of that era [in California] was extraordinary, while Bordeaux, especially, had fallen into a deep decline in the 1970s,” he says. “The Judgment was a perfect storm. It reset the tumblers at a moment when the French had let down their guard, the Californians were surging, and Americans still viewed France as a gastronomic north star. So that set the conditions for homegrown wines to find their market.”

The following five decades saw massive transformation for California, especially for Napa, which, post-Judgment, firmly established itself as America’s vinous center of gravity: an industry with a $13 billion economic impact.

“The lines have shifted so much, and been reset so much, since [1976],” says Bonné.

A Modern Day Rematch

It was while watching the 2008 Hollywood movie that fictionalized the Judgment, Bottle Shock, that Patrick Cappiello came up with the idea for a “1976 Redo” tasting.

Cappiello hoped the event could bring attention to small, independent American producers, many of whom currently face a similar challenge to the one 50 years ago—many Americans still believe European wines are superior to homegrown ones.

He also had another motive, which was to showcase a new wave of Californian wines—those made closer to the style of those in the 1970s.

“As a U.S. winemaker, you have to jump over [the Euro-centric] hurdle, which is hard enough,” says Cappiello. “But then there’s an even bigger, dumber hurdle which is the fact that the production of wine in California—especially in Napa Valley—for around three decades experienced the Robert Parker effect.”

The “bigger is better” influence of critics like Robert Parker and of recently deceased global wine consultant Michel Rolland—who pushed both Napa and Bordeaux into making riper, oakier, more alcoholic wines—lingers in California.

For the last several years, Cappiello has made it his mission to encourage people to buy American-made wines, particularly those from small producers making “pre-Parker” wines.

“There are less and less of these big brands that produce oversaturated, high alcohol, heavily oaked wines—they’re all falling out of favor,” Cappiello says.

“Those wineries are closing or they’re reducing stock or changing their methods to try and go back to an old style. It’s a conversation you hear in Napa all the time: ‘I want to go back to making wine the way they were doing it in the ‘70s.’”

It took Cappiello two years—and the help of wine professionals on both coasts, including winemaker Pax Mahle, media entrepreneur Josh Entman, author and sommelier Vanessa Price, and wine broker Ryan Mills Knapp—to make the “1976 Redo” tasting a reality. Cappiello decided to once again include Chardonnay and Cabernet, but two new varietal categories were added: Chenin Blanc and Syrah.

“We got hundreds of wineries and thousands of submissions for the first round of tasting,” says Cappiello, who did not include his Monte Rio wines in the lineup. Eight wine professionals whittled that down to five wines per category, to be judged in the final round against well-known French bottles.

There are really two paths forward. One is to remain dynamic, forward-looking, and willing to challenge convention—the same mindset that made the Judgment of Paris possible in the first place. The other is to become more static, more risk-averse, and ultimately less relevant over time. I’m optimistic because I think Napa, at its best, chooses the former. But that outcome isn’t guaranteed. Success is fragile, and it has to be earned continuously.

Matthew Crafton, head winemaker and president at Chateau Montelena

The Redo took place on March 24th 2026 in New York City, two months shy of the exact date of the original Judgment. Twelve judges from several sides of the wine industry—proctored by Master Sommelier Pascaline Lepeltier—blind tasted the ten total wines from each category. Once again, an American wine placed first in all categories except Cabernet, where Bordeaux’s Château Latour 2017 triumphed.

The rest of the winning wines were all from small West Coast producers, made in the “less is more” style that Cappiello champions: 2022 Chenin from Las Jaras Wines in Mendocino, California; 2021 Flaneur Wines Chardonnay from Oregon’s Willamette Valley; and 2021 Scar of the Sea Wines Syrah from San Luis Obispo Coast, California. Cappiello hopes the “Redo” will shine a spotlight on them—and the wines of other American producers, too, who, in these challenging times, could use all the support they can get.

“In the end, if you’re not buying wines from this country, you’re adding to the problem of us not being able to produce things,” Cappiello quips. “We may be the ‘great consumer,’ but what do we really produce? Wine is something that we do produce in every one of the 50 states.”

Another Inflection Point for the Wine World

Beyond the Redo, various events around the country will honor the world’s most famous blind tasting. Stag’s Leap will open ten of the 30 bottles that remain of its victorious 1973 Cabernet at various commemorative occasions, and Spurrier’s own Académie du Vin Library will release a book titled The Judgement of Paris: The 1976 Event That Shook the Wine World, featuring old photos and quotes from the world’s top wine professionals, on May 15.

The timing of the Judgment’s anniversary celebrations seems apt. As the wine industry rises to meet some of the toughest challenges it’s ever faced, the David versus Goliath narrative of ’76 provides hope and introspection.

Montelena’s Crafton believes that Napa is at another inflection point. “There are really two paths forward,” he says. “One is to remain dynamic, forward-looking, and willing to challenge convention—the same mindset that made the Judgment of Paris possible in the first place. The other is to become more static, more risk-averse, and ultimately less relevant over time. I’m optimistic because I think Napa, at its best, chooses the former. But that outcome isn’t guaranteed. Success is fragile, and it has to be earned continuously.”

The time is ripe for another wine awakening. Only this time, the ball is in home court.