The judgment of Paris is a now famous public wine tasting that took place in Paris in 1976. It was  hosted by a rambunctious wine retailer called Steven Spurrier (R.I.P.) who gathered together a bunch of journalists and French wine critics in his wine shop, so that they could taste some of the Californian Chardonnays that he was importing into Paris. Alongside those Chardonnays, he was also going to serve some French Chardonnay wines from appallations like Batard Montrachet, Puligny Montrachet, and Cote de Beaune.

Possibly the blindest tasting ever

But because Stephen was a sneaky little puff adder, he made a quick change to the planned proceedings by serving the wines blind, so that none of the critics or judges knew which wines were which.
What happened next, of course, has gone down as a central paradigm shifting event in wine history; the highest scoring wines turned out to be Californian (the Chateau Montelena Chardonnay 1973, and the Stag’s Leap Cabernet Sauvignon 1973).
As you can imagine, this was an absolute hullabaloo or chaos ensued, but the judgment of Paris had been declared, and indellible declaration was the birth of anew era for Chardonnay – a grape that no longer belonged to the French, but instead to the entire world.

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But if you have yet to sign up for your Monthly HanDrinksSolo Wine Subscription then you’ll have to hunt this wine down in your own time. But until then, here are my tasting notes and some technical specs:

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👃🏼 a delightfully intense and layered nose of lime cordial, cheese cake biscuit crust, flint, nutmeg and touches of jasmine flower.
👄 A concentrated rich gloriously juicy lime and oranges mix with accents of bitter grapefruit pith, flowing into a lengthy (super classy) tail end of lime, nutmeg and hint of pithy texture maintaining intrigue after the fruit fades.
🔬Wine of origin Elgin. 100% Chardonnay. Made by winemaker Vanessa Simkiss. The ferment took place spontaneously in barrel,  and the wine was matured on the lees for 10months.Only 40% malolactic conversion was permitted. The wine was matured in French oak barrels (30% new, 40 % 2nd fill, 20% 3rd fill, and 10% 4th fill).
Alc 13.5% | Sugar 4.0 | Acid 6.9g | pH 3.2 |