The Paris Wine Tasting of 1976, also known as the Judgment of Paris, was a wine competition to commemorate the United States Bicentennial, organized in Paris, France, on 24 May 1976. In the competition, French oenophiles participated in two blind tasting comparisons: one of top-quality Chardonnays and another of red wines (Bordeaux wines from France and Cabernet Sauvignon wines from California). A wine from Napa County, California was rated best in each category, which caused surprise as France was generally regarded as being the foremost producer of the world's best wines.
By the early 1970s, the quality of some California wines was outstanding, but few took notice, as the market favored French brands. Steven Spurrier, a British wine merchant, and his American colleague, Patricia Gallagher, organized the competition. Spurrier sold predominantly French wines and believed the California wines would not be favored by the judges.
The event's informal name "Judgment of Paris" is an allusion to the ancient Greek myth.
The wines
Red wines
White wines
The judges
The eleven judges were (in alphabetical order):
- Pierre Brejoux (French) inspector general of Appellation d'Origine Controlee Board
- Claude Dubois-Millot (French) director of Le Nouveau Guide (substitute for Christian Millau)
- Michel Dovaz (French) of the Institut Oenologique de France
- Patricia Gallagher (American) of l'Academie du Vin.
- Odette Kahn (French) director of La Revue du vin de France
- Raymond Oliver (French) owner of Le Grand Véfour restaurant
- Steven Spurrier (British) founder of L'Academie du Vin
- Pierre Tari (French) owner of Chateau Giscours winery
- Christian Vannequé (French) sommelier of La Tour d'Argent
- Aubert de Villaine (French) co-director of the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
- Jean-Claude Vrinat (French) owner of Taillevent restaurant
Method
Blind tasting was performed and the judges were asked to grade each wine out of 20 points. No specific grading framework was given, leaving the judges free to grade according to their own criteria.
Rankings of the wines preferred by individual judges were based on the grades they individually attributed.
An overall ranking of the wines preferred by the jury was also established in averaging the sum of each judge's individual grades (arithmetic mean). However, grades of Patricia Gallagher and Steven Spurrier were not taken into account, thus counting only grades of French judges.
The results
White wines
California Chardonnays vs. Burgundy Chardonnays
Official jury results:
Red wines
California Cabernet Sauvignon vs. Bordeaux
Official jury results
Average Original grades: out of 20 points.
Breakdown by judge
The original grades (out of 20 points) are shown, in alphabetical order by judge.
Pierre Brejoux
Original grades: out of 20 points.
Claude Dubois-Millot
Original grades: out of 20 points.
Michel Dovaz
Original grades: out of 20 points.
Patricia Gallagher
Original grades: out of 20 points.
Odette Kahn
Original grades: out of 20 points.
Raymond Oliver
Original grades: out of 20 points.
Steven Spurrier
Original grades: out of 20 points.
Pierre Tari
Original grades: out of 20 points.
Christian Vanneque
Original grades: out of 20 points.
Aubert de Villaine
Original grades: out of 20 points.
Jean-Claude Vrinat
Original grades: out of 20 points.
Interpretations and replications
Statistical interpretation
Orley Ashenfelter and Richard E. Quandt analyzed the results of all 11 judges instead of only nine and proposed a slightly different ranking (see below). They also stated that only the scores of the first two and of the last one wines in their ranking were statistically valid, and that the seven other wines could not be differentiated statistically.
- USA Stag's Leap Wine Cellars '73
- France Montrose '70
- France Mouton '70
- France Haut Brion '70
- USA Ridge Monte Bello '71
- USA Heitz Martha's Vineyard '70
- France Leoville-las-cases '71
- USA Freemark Abbey '69
- USA Mayacamas '71
- USA Clos du Val '72
In a 2026 analysis, Richard Ballantyne MW identified arithmetic errors in the white wine totals published in Taber's 2005 book, finding that Château Montelena and Meursault Charmes scored identically on the official nine-judge panel, making the white flight a tie rather than a clear Californian victory. Applying ordinal ranking, Borda count and the Condorcet method to the red wine scores, Ballantyne found Château Haut-Brion to be the most consistently preferred wine on the panel, placing first on three of four aggregation methods.
Tasting replications
Some critics argued that French red wines would age better than the California reds, so this was tested.
San Francisco Wine Tasting of 1978
The San Francisco Wine Tasting of 1978 was conducted 20 months after the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976. Steven Spurrier flew in from Paris to participate in the evaluations, which were held at the Vintners Club.
On 11 January 1978, evaluators blind-tasted the same Chardonnays tasted earlier in Paris.
- USA – 1974 Chalone Vineyard
- USA – 1973 Chateau Montelena
- USA – 1973 Spring Mountain Vineyard
- France – 1972 Puligny-Montrachet Les Pucelles Domaine Leflaive.
Ranking lower were Meursault Charmes Roulot 1973, Beaune Clos des Mouches Joseph Drouhin 1973, and Batard-Montrachet Ramonet-Prudhon 1973.
On 12 January 1978, evaluators blind-tasted the same Cabernet Sauvignons tasted earlier in Paris.
- USA – 1973 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars
- USA – 1970 Heitz Wine Cellars Martha's Vineyard
- USA – 1971 Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello
- France – 1970 Château Mouton Rothschild.
Ranking lower were Château Montrose 1970, Château Haut-Brion 1970, and Château Leoville Las Cases 1971.
French Culinary Institute Tasting of 1986
Two tastings were conducted by the French Culinary Institute (now called the International Culinary Center) on the tenth anniversary of the original Paris Wine Tasting. White wines were not evaluated in the belief that they were past their prime.
Steven Spurrier, who organized the original 1976 wine competition, assisted in the anniversary tasting. Eight judges blind tasted nine of the ten wines evaluated. The evaluation resulted in the following ranking:
- USA – Clos Du Val Winery 1972
- USA – Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello 1971
- France – Château Montrose 1970
- France – Château Leoville Las Cases 1971
- France – Château Mouton Rothschild 1970
- USA – Stag's Leap Wine Cellars 1973
- USA – Heitz Wine Cellars 1970
- USA – Mayacamas Vineyards 1971
- France – Château Haut-Brion 1970
Wine Spectator Tasting of 1986
Four of the judges were experts from Wine Spectator and two were outsiders. All tasted the wines blind.
- USA – Heitz Wine Cellars 1970
- USA – Mayacamas Vineyards 1971
- USA – Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello 1971
- USA – Stag's Leap Wine Cellars 1973
- USA – Clos Du Val Winery 1972
- France – Château Montrose 1970
- France – Château Mouton Rothschild 1970
- France – Château Leoville Las Cases 1971
- USA – Freemark Abbey Winery 1969
- France – Château Haut-Brion 1970
30th anniversary
A 30th anniversary re-tasting on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean was organized by Steven Spurrier in 2006. As The Times reported,
"The Tasting that Changed the Wine World: 'The Judgment of Paris' 30th Anniversary" was conducted on 24 May 2006.
The pearl anniversary was held simultaneously at the museum Copia in Napa, California, and in London at Berry Bros. & Rudd, Britain's oldest wine merchant.
The panel of nine wine experts at Copia consisted of Dan Berger, Anthony Dias Blue, Stephen Brook, Wilfred Jaeger, Peter Marks MW, Paul Roberts MS, Andrea Immer Robinson MS, Jean-Michel Valette MW and Christian Vannequé, an original judge from the 1976 tasting.
The panel of nine experts at Berry Bros. & Rudd consisted of Michel Bettane, Michael Broadbent MW, Michel Dovaz, Hugh Johnson, Matthew Jukes, Jane MacQuitty, Jasper Morris MW, Jancis Robinson OBE MW and Brian St. Pierre.
The results showed that additional panels of experts again preferred the California wines over their French competitors.
- USA – Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello 1971
- USA – Stag's Leap Wine Cellars 1973
- USA – Mayacamas Vineyards 1971 (tie)
- USA – Heitz Wine Cellars 'Martha's Vineyard' 1970 (tie)
- USA – Clos Du Val Winery 1972
- France – Château Mouton-Rothschild 1970
- France – Château Montrose 1970
- France – Château Haut-Brion 1970
- France – Château Leoville Las Cases 1971
- USA – Freemark Abbey Winery 1969
Three of the Bordeaux wines in the competition were from the 1970 vintage, identified by the Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux (CIVB) as among the four best vintages in the past 45 years or more. The fourth Bordeaux was a 1971, described by the Conseil as "very good". Another official French authority, the Office national interprofessionnel des vins (Onivins), rates the 1971 vintage as "excellent".
The French wine producers had many years' experience making wine, whereas the California producers typically had only a few years' experience; the 1972 vintage was Clos Du Val's very first, yet it performed better than any of its French competitors.
50th anniversary
In 2026, there were numerous scheduled events and articles recognizing the golden anniversary of the historic Parisian wine tasting. On 24 May 2026, the exact date of the fiftieth anniversary, wine afficionado James Suckling held a private re-creation with a group of tasters in San Francisco. A panel of ten wine professionals — Darrell Corti, Olivia Harmon, Andrey Ivanov MS, Marie Kim-Suckling, Tim Mondavi, Tegan Passalacqua, Daniel Pendleton, Tonya Pitts, James Suckling and Madeline Triffon MS — tasted two blind flights: a re-creation of the 1976 red-wine flight using the same vintages, and a separate flight of contemporary California and Bordeaux wines. Each judge ranked the wines in a flight from best to worst, and a wine's score was the sum of its ranks, with the lowest total indicating the most-preferred wine. The historic flight was scored by all ten judges; Olivia Harmon did not score the contemporary flight.
In the re-creation of the original flight, California wines took four of the top five places, led by the 1970 Heitz Wine Cellars Martha's Vineyard.
The tasters reported that all of the older wines remained in good condition. In the contemporary flight the 2016 Château Haut-Brion placed first (tie-break win over the 2013 Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello). The panel generally found the modern wines more uniform in style and less distinctive than the older bottles.
Napa's historic Freemark Abbey winery in St. Helena held their "Judgment of Napa" blind tasting event on October 5, 2026 as a tribute not only to the 50th anniversary, but also Freemark's 140 years and to the late Steven Spurrier on what would have been his 85th birthday. The event featured Patricia Gastaud-Gallagher, Spurrier’s American business partner who conceived the original tasting to showcase emerging quality in California wines; Bella Spurrier, Steven’s wife, whose impromptu photographs immortalized the event; and family members of TIME magazine reporter George Taber. Twenty of the world's most prestigious wines — spanning Burgundy, Bordeaux, Napa Valley, and beyond — took center stage with each bottle sourced from the finest producers and evaluated with exacting precision: vintage years were deliberately matched across regions to ensure a level playing field, so that terroir and craftsmanship alone determine greatness — mirroring the rigor of the 1976 tasting that changed wine history forever.
- USA – Aperture Collage Proprietary Red, Sonoma County 2021
- France – Château Mouton Rothschild, Pauillac, Bordeaux 2022
- USA – TOR Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, Oakville 2023
- USA – Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon, Oakville 2023
- USA – Dominus Estate, Yountville
- France - Château Léoville-Las Cases, Saint-Julien, Bordeaux 2022
- France - Château Montrose, Saint-Estèphe, Bordeaux 2022
- USA – Chappellet Pritchard Hill Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley 2023
- Chile - Viña Vik “VIK”, Millahue, Cachapoal Valley 2022
- Italy - Tenuta San Guido "Sassicaia", Bolgheri Sassicaia, Tuscany 2023
Implications in the wine industry
Although Spurrier had invited many reporters to the original 1976 tasting, the only reporter to attend was George M. Taber from Time, who promptly revealed the results to the world. The horrified and enraged leaders of the French wine industry then banned Spurrier from the nation's prestigious wine-tasting tour for a year, apparently as punishment for the damage his tasting had done to its former image of superiority. The tasting was not covered by the French press, who almost ignored the story. After nearly three months, Le Figaro published an article titled "Did the War of the Cru Take Place?", describing the results as "laughable" and saying that they "cannot be taken seriously". Six months after the tasting, Le Monde, France's most prestigious newspaper, reported the tasting where writer Lionel Raux wrote a similarly toned article titled, "Let's Not Exaggerate!"