Yesterday, we lost a truly impactful individual in the world of wine. Steven Spurrier died at the age of 79.
If you’re not familiar with Spurrier, he’s the man who’s responsible for putting California on the global wine map. In 1976, he had been living in Paris, France for six years, running Les Caves de la Madelein, a small and popular wine shop. Spurrier was enthusiastic about exploring different wines and he encouraged the store’s clients to taste wines before they bought them. He also started L’Academie du Vin, France’s first private wine school.
As someone who didn’t want to limit his students strictly to French wines, he sought to introduce products from around the world. California was known at the time for producing quality wines, but the assumption was that they could never rival those from the regions of France.
In honor of America’s bicentennial, Spurrier came up with an idea: hold a blind tasting in Paris that pitted California wines against French. Those tasting and judging the wines were among the most well known palates in France.
In what later became known as “The Judgment of Paris,” Chateau Montelena and Stag’s Leap Winery, both Napa Valley wineries, won the white and red categories, respectively. This was a monumental event in the wine world and actually damaged Spurrier’s status within the French circles.
For the rest of his life and career, I’ll let Wikipedia take it from here.
Needless to say that California owes a debt of gratitude to a man of influence in the wine industry for opening up the global market for not only their wines, but for wines throughout the New World.
If you want to consume more content dedicated to Steven Spurrier, I recommend the book Judgment of Paris by George Taber, as well as the movies Bottle Shock and Somm III. Note that if you read the book before watching Bottle Shock, as I did, you’ll note the enormous poetic license taken by the screenwriters.
RIP Steven Spurrier.