Did California wine really beat France's best in a 1976 blind tasting?

In that tasting, yes: a Napa wine was rated best in each category. On 24 May 1976 in Paris, French judges blind-tasted top Chardonnays and red wines from France and California, and a wine from Napa County, California was rated best in both the white and the red category. That caused surprise, because France was generally regarded as the foremost producer of the world's best wines. The event was organised to commemorate the United States Bicentennial, and its informal name, the Judgment of Paris, alludes to an ancient Greek myth.

The organiser did not expect this. Steven Spurrier, a British wine merchant, and his American colleague Patricia Gallagher put it together, and Spurrier, who sold mostly French wines, believed the California wines would not be favoured by the judges. By the early 1970s some California wines were outstanding, but few took notice, as the market favoured French brands.

The judges graded each wine out of 20 points, with no specific grading framework, so each used their own criteria. Spurrier had invited many reporters, but the only one to attend was George Taber of Time, who promptly revealed the results to the world.

The French wine world was not amused. Its leaders banned Spurrier from the nation's wine-tasting tour for a year, apparently as punishment, and the French press almost ignored the story. Le Figaro, after nearly three months, called the results laughable.

Was it a fluke? Critics argued that French reds would age better, so the tasting was repeated later, and at the 30th-anniversary re-tasting in 2006 judges on both continents again gave top honours to a Californian red.