A man sips a glass of Bordeaux wine
© AFP/File Michel GagneNAPA, United States (AFP) - Wines from California's Napa Valley wine region were judged best by the combined scores of twin panels, one in California and a second in London.
Judges on both continents gave top honors to a 1971 Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet from Napa.
"Maybe it is final justification that it held through all these years and did well," said Monte Bello wine maker Paul Draper. "I'm truly delighted."
"Ten years from now, all of us and all the wines will truly be faded and maybe we can lay this to rest."
The highest ranked Bordeaux was a 1970 Chateau Mouton Rothschild, which placed sixth out of the ten wines tasted in the anniversary recreation of the historic "Judgment of Paris" tasting on May 24, 1976.
People buy bottles of Bordeaux wine
© AFP/File Derrick CeyracBordeaux wines took sixth through ninth places on Wednesday, with a 1969 Cabernet from Freemark Abbey finishing last.
The rematch of wines from the "Judgment of Paris," billed as the most famous wine tasting in history, was held simultaneously in the heart of California's premier wine country and at Britain's oldest wine and spirits merchant.
Among the nine judges that sampled and scrutinized ten unlabeled glasses of decades-old premium wines at the Copia Center for Wine, Food and the Arts here, was Frenchman Christian Vanneque, a judge at the 1976 event at which California vintners scored an upset victory over Bordeaux wines.
Judges in Napa agreed that wines from both sides had elegantly stood the test of time.
"I'm very impressed," said Vanneque, who lives in Indonesia. "I don't know if I will be able to go back to France. After a second time, they will kill me."
An expert takes notes after tasting a Bordeaux wine
© AFP/File Michel GagneTwo of Vanneque's favorite blind wine picks were from Napa Valley.
"The one I thought was a Mouton was Clos du Val," Vanneque said. "The most surprising thing is they were all exceptional."
"I did not expect to have that much harmony among them all."
The event was "a wonderful sustained victory" for California wines because they held their own against the Bordeaux wine, considered the most elegant aging reds in the world, Vanneque said.
"There wasn't one wine that stood head-and-shoulders above the others," said taster Jean-Michel Valette, a master of wine at Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa. "These are all world class."
Vanneque confided he went into the tasting expecting "the downfall of the California wines."
He contended that while he was the only French judge on the Napa panel, his mission was not to "fight it out" with the Napa Valley cabernets that reigned victorious three decades earlier.
A wine warehouse in California
© AFP/Getty Images/File Justin Sullivan"It confirms that wines from both places can age gracefully," said Pierre Mattot, aide to the French consul general in San Francisco.
"I'm happy," continued Mattot, who attended the Napa tasting. "People came together for the love of wine, and that is a beautiful thing."
A "pre-eminent European contingent" headed by renowned British wine writer Steven Spurrier tasted the resurrected vintages at the same time at Berry Brothers and Rudd in London.
"We now know that California wines wiped the boards with the French wines," Spurrier said by telephone from London.
"No French wine is ever going to compare to a California red," he quipped.
Spurrier arranged the 1976 event to mark the bicentennial of the American Revolution and the rematch was meant as "a fun celebration," organizers said.
The spotlight was on the Bordeaux and California cabernet vintages that faced off three decades earlier.
The 1973 Stag's Leap Cellars Cabernet that won in 1976 placed a dignified second in the rematch.
"I was shaking," Stag's Leap owner Warren Winiarski said when asked how he felt watching the rematch. "But then I thought if it doesn't prove itself as well as it did 30 years ago, so what?"
A 1971 Chateau Leoville-Las-Cases finished ninth.
Eighth place went to a 1970 Chateau Haut-Brion and seventh to a Chateau Montrose from the same year.
Heitz Martha's Vineyard and Mayacamus wineries tied for third place, with Clos du Val taking fifth.
Newer wines considered "the best of now" were also rated, California against California and Bordeaux against Bordeaux, during the tasting.
© 2006 AFP. All rights of reproduction and distribution reserved. All information displayed on this section (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.