If you’re eyeing that bottle of California red this weekend, today is the day in 1976 when the tide turned for West Coast wines, which bested their European counterparts at the Paris Wine Tasting of that year. It had never been done before—a Napa County wine rated better in each category than a French wine. Quelle horreur, indeed: a 1973 Chateau Montelena beat 1973 Meursault Charmes Roulot in the white category, and a 1973 Stag’s Leap Cabernet beat a 1970 Château Mouton-Rothschild in the red category. As a result, California's wine industry, which had already been on the rise by 1976, exploded—producing more than 332 million gallons of wine by the decade’s end, up from 165 million at its start. But, the most popular wine out of California today isn’t a Cabernet Sauvignon, but Pinot Noir, made popular by another, more recent phenomenon: 2004’s “Sideways,” starring Paul Giamatti and Thomas Hayden Church, a buddy/roadtrip film through Santa Barbara that includes a lot of wine drinking and is credited with improving Pinot Noir sales across the country, further enhancing Santa Barbara winery tourism. Thanks to California, the U.S. ranks third in global wine production behind France (at the number two spot) and Italy (at number one). Pictured: a bust of Bacchus by François Girardon, c. 1680-1700, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (public domain).
NCPA
