Judgment of Paris thoughts

Finally read George Taber’s Judgment of Paris, the book that chronicles the fateful afternoon of May 24, 1976 when nine French judges, in a blind tasting, proclaimed a California Chardonnay & Cabernet Sauvignon superior to first growth French wines. I flew to London for a week of work yesterday and am visiting Paris over the weekend, so I wanted to read it before I get to France.   

The story of the tasting is interesting, and it certainly has changed the world’s perception of where outstanding wine is produced, and broken down social believes that French terrior is the only true land that can produce world class wine. But the part of the book that struck me as most interesting, and has my head spinning today is the stories of the people behind both the American & French wines that were tasted that day. 

 The American winemakers were generally people with a dream to make great wine, people starting a second career, folks determined to start businesses in a place that, they believed, had all the ‘right stuff’. People like Mike Grgich who was the winemaker behind Chateau Montelena’s winning Chardonnay. 

 The stories got me thinking about how much I love the lifestyle of wine & food, how I enjoy technology and my current career but I feel something is missing. I guess I would rather toil doing something more personally rewarding, being part of the natural evolution of human existence than be a pure hearted capitalist running a hundred miles in hour in the rat race. What the book means to me and what becomes of these thoughts are unclear, but I feel a bit more excited about the future today than I did yesterday.