Eighty Percent Alexander Valley
Some of us are familiar with the story of the 1976 Paris Tasting, and more people have become aware of the historic event through the movie “Bottle Shock”. It was interesting to see how film makers treated the story of the blind tasting, where a panel of French wine experts compared California Chardonnays with white Burgundies, and California Cabernets with red Bordeaux. The world was shocked when the winners were announced; they were two relatively unknown, small California wineries. It really is quite remarkable to think that it took centuries for France to build its reputation as the wine making leader of the world, but then this one blind tasting changed everything.
The story was retold in George Taber’s book Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine (Scribner 2005.) The Hollywood version of the story, Bottle Shock, now on DVD, focuses on the 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay. Apparently the film embellishes the Paris Tasting to attract a wider audience.
If you know any of the real life characters of the event, then you realize that the story is remarkable in its simplicity and nothing about it needed to be embellished. If I were writing the script for a movie, it would begin with my neighbor Jeanette Brizee. On a warm Indian Summer afternoon of 2006, she was hosting one of her “wienie roasts” at the confluence of Sausal Creek and the Russian River in Alexander Valley. Jeanette was pouring a Chateau St. Jean Chardonnay for us on a sandy beach below her family’s Belle Terre vineyards, which her father Henry Dick and brother Ron Dick first planted in 1966. As mergansers floated by and kingfishers rattled, we whittled our roasting sticks and lit our little fire. It was just about the most unpretentious setting one could imagine, so I wondered why Jeanette generously shared such a grand chardonnay at such a simple occasion.
To be continued
Some of us are familiar with the story of the 1976 Paris Tasting, and more people have become aware of the historic event through the movie “Bottle Shock”. It was interesting to see how film makers treated the story of the blind tasting, where a panel of French wine experts compared California Chardonnays with white Burgundies, and California Cabernets with red Bordeaux. The world was shocked when the winners were announced; they were two relatively unknown, small California wineries. It really is quite remarkable to think that it took centuries for France to build its reputation as the wine making leader of the world, but then this one blind tasting changed everything.
The story was retold in George Taber’s book Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine (Scribner 2005.) The Hollywood version of the story, Bottle Shock, now on DVD, focuses on the 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay. Apparently the film embellishes the Paris Tasting to attract a wider audience.
If you know any of the real life characters of the event, then you realize that the story is remarkable in its simplicity and nothing about it needed to be embellished. If I were writing the script for a movie, it would begin with my neighbor Jeanette Brizee. On a warm Indian Summer afternoon of 2006, she was hosting one of her “wienie roasts” at the confluence of Sausal Creek and the Russian River in Alexander Valley. Jeanette was pouring a Chateau St. Jean Chardonnay for us on a sandy beach below her family’s Belle Terre vineyards, which her father Henry Dick and brother Ron Dick first planted in 1966. As mergansers floated by and kingfishers rattled, we whittled our roasting sticks and lit our little fire. It was just about the most unpretentious setting one could imagine, so I wondered why Jeanette generously shared such a grand chardonnay at such a simple occasion.
To be continued
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