Judgment of Paris

The blind tasting that put Gemello Wine on the international map.

👋 Hello, I’m Kevin Ferguson, author of 🍷 Rain on the Monte Bello Ridge,🍷 my forthcoming memoir about health, aging and winemaking. (Read the origin story of the book.) 🍇 The Centenarian Playbook is my newsletter, which features longevity tips and stories from Grandma Kay’s long life. It also includes stories of the Gemello Winery, which her late husband, Mario, ran for nearly half a century. 📖 I’m sure you’ll find my maternal grandparents are quite lovable characters.

Below is a middle chapter. Hope you enjoy it!

---

Judgment of Paris

Mario Gemello was a storyteller. 

He loved to command a room. Throughout his forty-eight years in winemaking, he was president of many organizations. The Santa Clara Wine Growers Association. The Elks Lodge of Palo Alto. The Eagles. The Kiwanis. This may demonstrate his leadership abilities, but speaking as his grandson, I think these titles were more about his eagerness to hold court among his friends and peers at meetings and luncheons.

That day in 2002 when Mario and I unearthed his Montebello rainy day conception story from that dusty old cassette tape, it added a new favorite story to his greatest hits compilation. 

He must’ve told that story about 100 times in the remaining three years of his life.

One day that spring of 2002, we were mingling around a buffet of hors d’oeuvres looking out on the cliffs of Pescadero for an afternoon of whale watching. A dozen or so friends and family standing nearby.

“Have you guys heard my story about being conceived?” Mario blurted out, wine glass in hand.

“You mean when it rained for four days,” someone responded.

He smiled. “Ok, so you have heard it. That’s a good one, isn’t it?” he asked, not the least bit embarrassed about a storytelling-repeat-offense.

A Wine That’s “Both Obscure and Legendary” - NY Times

Another story he loved to share occurred that same spring of 2002. Grandma Kay had summoned him in from his garden. “A reporter is on the phone,” she told him.

A reporter? That’s odd. He’d been retired for 20 years, but he loved to talk, especially about wine.

The journalist introduced himself as Ray Isle, the managing editor of Wine & Spirits Magazine. He wanted his reaction to some unexpected news. He asked if Mario was familiar with the 1976 Judgment of Paris wine tasting event.

Of course, Mario said. 

That event on May 24th, 1976, put the California wine industry on the international map. It was organized by British wine expert Steven Spurrier, who was later portrayed in the 2008 movie, Bottle Shock, by Alan Rickman, the English actor best known as one of the all-time movie villains, Hans Gruber, in Die Hard.

For that 1976 tasting, Spurrier rallied a panel of nine French judges to blindly taste wines from France’s finest vintages and compared them against California’s Napa Valley wines. Judges were all stunned when the wines were revealed and the unthinkable happened: California defeated France. Napa Valley’s Chateau Montelena won the white wine category, and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars topped all reds.¹

On the phone that day in 2002, Isle told my grandfather a re-enactment of Spurrier’s tasting was held in Manhattan, recently, in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Paris event. Mark Golodetz, president of Sleepy Hollow Wine Company, assembled a group of wine writers, winemakers and collectors for a blind tasting of seven Bordeauxs and seven California Cabernets from the early ‘70s.

“Oh?” Mario was intrigued, perhaps one of his friends had won.

Most of the wines chosen were heavyweights, like Stag’s Leap, BV Private Reserve 1970, Heitz Martha’s Vineyard ’70 & ’74, Latour ’70 and 8 others. Tasters were instructed to identify if a wine was French or American. Rank their top 5 wines. Scores were then averaged, and a group favorite was revealed.²

Ray Isle told Mario many of the judges were quite amazed - when revealing the winner, it was not only from California - again, similar to the 1976 tasting - but not even from the popular Napa Valley region. 

It was from the Santa Clara Valley: the 1970 Gemello Cabernet Sauvignon.

It turned out, the Gemello Cab, not just won, but won decisively. It ranked first for 14 of 16 judges, and was thought to be French by all but one taster.³

One of the judges, Eric Asimov, would write in the New York Times a few years later, that the Gemello Cab was “both obscure and legendary.”

It was one of the best vintages my grandfather had made, perhaps only second to his 1960 Cabernet, Mario told Isle of Wine & Spirits.

“Martin Ray planted that vineyard up on Pierce Road, in Saratoga; it was right at the entrance to the old Paul Masson estate up there. It sloped around with a morning sun exposure — it was really one of the best cabernet vineyards in the area,” Mario said.⁴ 

“Martin Ray planted that vineyard up on Pierce Road, in Saratoga; it was right at the entrance to the old Paul Masson estate up there,” Mario said.

Sadly, the vineyard was ripped out in 1980. “They put in a bunch of million dollar homes instead,” Mario said.

This was a proud memory for my grandfather, who passed away of prostate cancer on Halloween day of 2005.

About two weeks before, I sat with him at Mountain View’s El Camino hospital, for his last round of radiation. He asked me to bring him the Wine & Spirits article. He wanted to read it one more time.

1. “Judgment in Paris,” Time magazine, June 7, 1976

2. “The Greatest Wine You’ve Never Heard Of,” by Ray Isle, Wine & Spirits Magazine, June 2002

3. “Judgment in Paris - Revisited,” Connoisseurs’ Corner, by Charles Olken, Marin Independent Journal, May 2002

4. “The Greatest Wine…” Wine & Spirits, June 2002