A Fresh Take on California Wines Forty years after the ‘Judgement of Paris,’…

a new generation of young California winemakers are ready to impress their European counterparts

It’s been nearly 40 years since Steven Spurrier, a British wine merchant working in Paris, held a blind tasting between the top wines of California and their French counterparts. The “Judgment of Paris,” as it became known, surprised many, as a clutch of Californian wines scored higher than examples from Bordeaux and Burgundy. Overnight the world woke up to what Californian winemakers had known all along: Their wines could stand alongside the very best.

In many ways the late 1970s were a turning point for California wines, as key figures like Robert Mondavi, Paul Draper of Ridge Vineyards, Chateau Montelena winemaker Mike Grgich, and Joe and Alice Heitz took an industry that had been best known for producing high-volume standard table wine and planted it firmly on the fine wine map…