The Judgement of Paris: The Greatest Prank on French Wine Snobs Ever A comedy article
by Dan Seitz 919 11 03/01/2010 05:28 AM 2438 views
In 1976, Steven Spurrier had it all figured out. As the head of a French wine school, he was going to exploit the bicenntenial of America's birth to have some fun at America's expense, and flatter the French about the quality of their wine. It was a high-concept wine prank that backfired.
Spurrier admits he loaded the deck for the French; he couldn't even properly import the wine, and had to smuggle it in people's luggage. Of course, this being France, they would have received only a Gallic sneer if they had been busted, so it was more like putting a banana in your carry-on. Eventually he managed to sneak in the wines, and in so doing, set France up for a massive fall.
Spurrier explaining to judges how French wines are going to kick America's ass
Back in 1976, people associated wines from California with fine vintages like Thunderbird and Ripple Blanc. Everybody thought the French were superior because they had being producing wine for hundreds of years, compared with the young California wine industry. Also, the French are snobs, which made them automatically superior.
Spurrier put Gallo's finest vintages against France's greatest wines in front of France's toughest wine critics. He even invited reporters to the event, because watching Muhammad Ali beat the crap out of a cancer kid is funny. Especially if he's holding a kitten. Who also has cancer.
If you haven't already guessed, Spurrier may have been kind of a dick. In the 2008 movie Bottle Shock, based on this infamous event, it's no wonder they had Alan Rickman play him.
Spurrier, Professor Snape
As with many pranks, things didn't go exactly according to plan. First up were the whites, which are considered a lesser wine to the French, probably because they don't go well with cream sauces. American wines took the top three slots, while one of the greatest white wines ever, according to these same snobs, came in one step above vinegar.
The French freaked out. Bad enough that the Americans beat them in whites, but there was no way, no way whatsoever, that they were going to beat them in reds. The judges actually banded together to make sure this didn't happen, rating what they thought were the French wines the highest.
Which didn't keep a California wine from claiming the number one spot in reds, as well. France had just been served by surfers.
Luckily, this wasn't a well-publicized event. Only one journalist showed up. Surely they'd be able to cover this up, right? Unfortunately, the journalist who showed up worked for Time magazine. Even though the resulting piece was only a four-paragraph filler article, it transformed the global wine industry and has been called "the most significant news story ever written about wine." (The notes for his article have since been placed in the Smithsonian.)
The net result of this prank going horribly right was the remaking of the California wine industry as something other than Hobo Fuel, which led in turn to the Australians and the Chileans making their own wine, which also ended up kicking the crap out of the French. Spurrier, meanwhile, was banned from the wine-tasting circuit for a year, in retaliation for pantsing the French and showing them up. He went on to become a respected wine writer, and to be ripped that a movie made him look like such a jackass.
Everybody, please welcome new writer Dan Seitz to ZUG. I liked his erudite choice of a first prank, the famous "Judgement of Paris" wine tasting, and also that he somehow managed to work in a kitten with cancer.
I like fruit wines. I'm normally a Shiraz drinker, but I had a really good White the other day that had loads of grapefruit taste to it. It was very yummy!
It isn't perfectly clear, but my potential victim(s) would have to closely check out the contents before 'going' so that shouldn't be a problem.
It should have the time to get hard overnight (yes, it's about 2am now where I live) so i'll just have to wait until tomorrow morning for some reactions..
The combination of that post about a toilet (wtf?) and the wine tastings made me think of Bill's jailhouse winemaking story, and the fact that no one here has yet attempted a home re-creation/taste test of prison wine making.
I'd do it myself, but there's the whole chemical dependency issue. So someone else is going to have to step up.
Whistler, you and I are in the same boat: toddler/preschooler around the house, chemical dependency issues, and lack of sufficiently stupid friends we can trick into trying it.
Maybe someone here is stupid enough knows someone stupid enough.
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