The Judgement of Paris: A Review

           In the distant past, when I was teaching English to foreigners, a student told me that he didn’t believe in luck. He didn’t believe in evolution either, but that’s beside the point. I’d never heard of The Judgement of Paris wine tasting at the time, but I think it suggests that he was wrong, and that luck plays a huge role in our lives.

          I suppose readers of The Wine Merchant know the story: Steven Spurrier organised a face-off in Paris between wines from California and Bordeaux and Burgundy in 1976, and the Americans won. It has been presented as a key moment in the recent history of wine, when the French were knocked off their pedestal.

          The role played by luck is very clear if you read a new book on the subject published by Académie du Vin Library, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the event. An American reporter called George Taber from Time magazine was present at the tasting, and it was his article which set the ball rolling. As Spurrier himself notes in an excerpt from his autobiography which is reprinted here, Taber only accepted the invitation to attend ‘with the caveat that if something else cropped up, he wouldn’t be able to make it.’ ‘Had George not been present to witness the tasting and to report the story’, Spurrier continues, ‘our little adventure would probably have sunk without trace.’

          The book starts well, with a chapter about Paris in the 1970s. There are splendidly evocative pictures of the city as it was, including one which reminds you just how awful the Centre Pompidou looks. There’s also the odd amusing piece of commentary: ‘Pavement café society was alive and well in 1970s Paris, as was the notoriously aloof attitude of the waiters.’ I haven’t been to Paris in a few years, but that still held true on my last visit, and I speak French.

          The account of the lead-up to the tasting and the event itself is very entertaining. I learned a few facts I was unaware of. For one, the competitive element was sprung on the French judges, who were not aware that they would be comparing American and French wines. ‘Fortunately, they accepted’, Spurrier observes. Again, luck. Second, I didn’t know that the line-up of red Bordeaux wines was really stellar: Mouton-Rothschild, Haut-Brion, Montrose and Léoville las Cases. I knew which wines had won, but that was it.

          The book struggles to maintain these heights. There’s a chapter featuring tasting notes of the wines sampled at Spurrier’s event, along with descriptions of later vintages of the same wines. It’s the sort of thing which will only appeal to those who’ve tried them. A lot of space is allotted to people within the industry pontificating about the significance of the event. Mostly, it’s boilerplate, with a lot of repetition.

          A couple of enjoyable chapters come towards the end. A rather humorous piece written by Raymond Blake concerns the challenges of blind tasting, while another lists ‘Eight Events That Shook The Wine World’. Needless to say, the Judgement of Paris makes the list.  

          The Judgement of Paris – a controversial term in some quarters, I discovered – occurred half a century ago. I think it’s time the world of wine moved on. As for the book, it’s hard to see what the target market is. It looks great, but it’s eye-wateringly expensive. Perhaps it will be snapped up by those who are lucky enough to consider Ridge’s Monte Bello Cabernet Sauvignon a weekday wine. 

Published in The Wine Merchant, May 2026

Tasting Victory: A Review

           A very long time ago, one of England’s greatest cricketers was a man called C.B. Fry. He was astonishingly talented. In addition to playing cricket for England, he was also a professional footballer and the holder of the world long-jump record. Bizarrely enough, he was even offered the chance to be King of Albania at one point. Later in his life he wrote an autobiography called Life Worth Living.

        I thought of C.B. Fry, who I imagine is long-forgotten even by most cricket fans, while I was reading Tasting Victory by Gérard Basset. It’s a pretty good title, but I think Basset should have purloined the name of Fry’s book for his own autobiography. For although Basset died an early death, he accomplished an awful lot: he was a Master Sommelier, a Master of Wine, the winner of innumerable sommelier titles, including Best Sommelier in the World, and the co-founder of the Hotel du Vin group. It was a life worth living.

        As someone who writes about travel, I enjoyed the early chapters in which he describes his upbringing in Saint-Étienne (“nothing special about the place”) and “beautiful” Aix-en-Provence. He paints a vivid picture of France at the time. I was surprised to learn that “in the late sixties and early seventies, sport in France was not taken that seriously”, although his father viewed cyclists in the Tour de France as “superheroes with supernatural powers”. It was clearly a more innocent time. Travel itself was evidently a more pleasurable and relaxed affair too. Returning to France after his first visit to England, Basset recounts that “the Marseille customs officer did not even bother to check anyone”.

        There are many amusing anecdotes in Basset’s story. He recalls being “mystified” by an “aloof” diner in Hampshire who had been very genial the previous time he had served him. The reason eventually dawned on Basset: “I realised the woman he was dining with was not the same one he had been with three weeks ago. This lady, no doubt, was his wife.” Sir Edward Heath, at the time a former prime minister, would visit the same restaurant and have whisky as an apéritif before moving on to wine. Not good for the palate, perhaps, but worthy of respect.

        Best of all is the tale of the high-rolling bankers who descended on the place and proceeded to drink Dom Pérignon, Grand Cru Chablis, Château Lafite, Château Latour and Château d’Yquem. They wanted to finish the night with some Krug, but Basset told them it was sadly impossible as it was past midnight and they were not staying in the hotel. One of the bankers simply paid for a room, ‘didn’t bother to take the key’, and they kept on drinking. The bankers eventually departed, after settling up and leaving “a generous tip”. Basset writes that he “felt very proud…for having played my part in such a successful arrangement.”

Basset had an appealingly old school mindset. He was competitive and worked hard to achieve success. When describing difficult periods, he does so in a matter-of-fact way. Although he had a rough childhood, there’s no suggestion that he was plagued by mental health troubles as a consequence. When he was diagnosed with cancer, he was phlegmatic: “To my surprise I did not panic or have a meltdown. I was sixty years old and I thought, ‘Well, if my time is up, then so be it.’”

There are many useful lessons for life in Basset’s book. Readers of this publication will not be surprised by his remark that “there was an assumption that being French made me a wine expert.” Many of his valid observations are not related to wine, though. He encountered troubles in business towards the end of his life, leading to this comment: “It turned out that just as we had no experience with con men, so we had no real experience with lawyers either – but we were about to get it.” Words for the ages.

I liked Tasting Victory a lot. It’s short and very readable, and Basset comes across well. He was a hard-working man who made the most of his abilities and opportunities and had considerable success. In words of which C.B. Fry would have approved, he had this to say about his life: “I have had a good innings.”

Published in The Wine Merchant, April 2026.

Pressing Matters: A Review

            Many books about wine have a problem: they're expensive. A case in point is a recent book about Beaujolais. You might think that as a wine lover and former resident of Japan, the last redoubt of Beaujolais Nouveau, I was part of the target market for this work. Was I willing to spend £35 on it, though? No, I was not. 

     At £20, Alan Ramey’s Pressing Matters is therefore a relative bargain. The writer covers eight issues of importance, or at least matters of interest, within the wine world.

Ramey is American, and the co-owner of Ramey Wine Cellars in California. He writes in an academic style, and is not afraid of using footnotes, which is to be respected. He's also to be commended for not using annoying buzzwords like ‘intentionality’ and ‘wellness’.

        The significance of some of the subjects Ramey addresses is debatable. For instance, he spends a lot of time on the issue of terroir, outlining arguments about whether the climate or the soil is more important. Does it matter, though? Perhaps to vine growers, but to the average wine enthusiast I don’t think it’s worth spending much time on.

        The best part of the book is a thought-provoking chapter on the issue of taste, and the extent to which it’s possible to determine the quality of a wine in an objective fashion. This may seem esoteric, but it should matter to drinkers as many are willing to buy based on a recommendation or a score.

Ramey notes that balance is typically accepted as a sign of quality, but points out that some grapes which have lofty reputations give unbalanced wines. Riesling, for example, often has off-the-scale acidity. Length and intensity are dubious indicators of quality too, according to Ramey, as the wine just might not taste good.

        These means of judging a wine will be familiar to anyone who’s studied for the WSET Diploma. What about complexity? Ramey writes that it's often seen as part of quality because the opposite - something 'monolithic' - 'is decidedly not good'. I'm not convinced, though. Red Rioja Reservas and Gran Reservas are wonderful, in my opinion, because they have a ton of oak. For what it’s worth, I think length is the key to quality, as long as the wine tastes good, of course.

        The chapters on organics, biodynamics and natural wine are useful, as the topics are fashionable. Still, these sections, like the book in general, would be more enjoyable if the reader got to the bottom of what Ramey believes. I wanted to know if he feels that the whole idea of a natural wine is flimflam, or if he thinks biodynamics is hokum. His goal was clearly to make the reader think, but the end result is like a PhD thesis in which the candidate never reaches a conclusion.

That said, Pressing Matters does have another thing going for it: it’s short. Books about wine have taken the same path as Hollywood films in recent times: the longer, the better, apparently. Many could do with having a hundred pages lopped off. Perhaps then they would be cheaper.

 Published in The Wine Merchant, March 2026.