Plonking for the Californian

And whatever the experts may say, and despite the Californian sunshine, we think that France is a better country to taste that wine.

If the Americans chomping on ‘Freedom Fries’ (washed down with a large Coke) for lunch really wanted to see French blood boiling, there couldn’t have been a better way than this: tasters spitting out French wine to toast Californian instead. In a recontest of an event that took place in Paris 30 years ago, expert palates in a blind tasting yet again rated the products of Californian vineyards to be superior to those from France. Champagne never felt so sour.

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But if there’s one more thing that came out of all that sniffing, rolling and spitting -- and slurping and gulping for the less inhibited -- of vintage and modern reds and whites that went on simultaneously in London and California last week, it was this: the great sommelier bluff. Is it possible that the expert judgment was a result of the fact that the judges (incidentally, of an Anglo-Saxon majority) were not allowed the benefit of labels to allow them to differentiate between grapes, vineyards, years, etc. -- and so, just follow their blind taste?

For the lay wine drinker -- who’s just discovered that two glasses of wine can make the world a better place than say, two glasses of whisky -- this contest will have been a morale booster, an indication to never get intimidated by the sommelier offering you a spittoon in a Paris restaurant. And whatever the experts may say, and despite the Californian sunshine, we think that France is a better country to taste that wine -- of your choice, of course.