Beyond the Judgment of Paris with Christian Spurrier (TCGP S3 E16)

# AI Transcript: TCGP S3 E16 - Beyond the Judgment of Paris with Christian Spurrier

Announcer:
Jonathan Pogash is the cocktail guru, a mixologist and hospitality expert. Ah, see? You know big words. Dude, I'm the cocktail guru. Cheers. Jeffrey's his dad, a wine and spirits author, historian, and consultant.

Jeffrey:
Well, I do my homework.

Announcer:
With decades of experience, they're always looking for the next big thing. Join this father and son duo for a few laughs as they explore the hottest trends in hospitality with the service industry's leading trailblazers and tastemakers. Welcome to the Cocktail Guru Podcast. Bonjour Papa.

Jeffrey:
Bonjour. Bonjour. Pourquoi tu parles français tout d'un coup?

Jonathan:
Nobody's gonna understand us except for us, but I I was I just got French all of a sudden I just got back from well, I just got back from Paris.

Jeffrey:
That's true. You did you got back from the The concert of all concerts.

Jonathan:
Well, yes, it wasn't just because of T Swift that we Went to Paris, but we saw quite a bit of our family out there and you know, you've seen the photos It's it was pretty great

Jeffrey:
Yes, you did. We're very happy that you got to see the cousins and some of the aunts and uncles out there in Paris. That's fantastic.

Jonathan:
We missed you. And, you know, I have fond memories of wine being served at, you know, my uncle David's parties that he would always have. I know that you would connect with David on wine and vintage and collections and all of that. And he brought me, you know, one of the first things he did was bring me down into his cellar, which is full. I mean, it's totally like it's like a crime scene down there. I mean, it's full. I'm not a crime scene, but it's like a bunker. It really is like a bunker. You know, they have shelves of things that that they could eat if they were, you know, in some kind of a nuclear disaster. And then these all of these bottles of wine that are just collecting dust.

Jeffrey:
And well, well, I have a bottle of wine that was collecting dust, but it isn't anymore. And I'm drinking it in honor of the person that we are going to be talking about today, and we'll get into that in just a couple of minutes. This is a vintage port that I am building, and that has significance for today's episode.

Jonathan:
I'm very much looking forward to today's guest, because it's been a long time coming, to quote a Taylor Swift song. Did you all get that?

Jeffrey:
Yes. started this podcast, the one thing that I wanted to do. Yes. Was interview the person that we are going to talk about. Unfortunately, that is not possible today because that person whose name was Steven Spurrier was my mentor. Steven Spurrier is responsible for my sitting here, being here right now. He's responsible for this podcast. He is. He is responsible for you, by the way, Jonathan. He is responsible for you being in the wine and spirits industry because now him, I would not have entered that glorious industry almost 50 years ago. And if I hadn't, chances are you wouldn't be doing what you're doing now in the world of mixology and cocktails.

Jonathan:
That's very true.

Jeffrey:
So I have this fine gentleman, Steven Spurrier, to thank for my entire life. I mean, I met your mom during the time that I was studying wine with him in Paris. By the way, this goes back to 1973.

Jonathan:
There we go. What are you showing me? Oh, you're showing us, is that an old ID of yours?

Jeffrey:
RATP, my metro ID card from 1973.

Jonathan:
You look like quite the hippie.

Jeffrey:
Yes, and this is my student ID from the Sorbonne, the Université de Paris. Which is why I was in Paris in the first place to learn French, but things how many said that how many sit-ins?

Jonathan:
Did you participate in the 70s?

Jeffrey:
I participated in the 70s in Paris none because 68 was over by the time I got there and There were actually, there were demonstrations in 73, 74, but I didn't participate.

Jonathan:
But in the 60s, you were participating.

Jeffrey:
In the 60s, I didn't participate in some demonstration. Yes, at the college that I attended.

Jonathan:
Okay, well, can we bring on our guest?

Jeffrey:
Well, in one minute. I just want to say that, what else? There's so many things I have to say. The background was, I was in Paris. I was a student that had just enrolled. I was there in 1972, that's when I arrived. I enrolled in the Solbun through an organization called Academic Year Abroad. That organization happened to offer two different types of classes for students. So, you know, instead of in addition to classes at the Solbun, we could have fun classes at this Academic Year Abroad program, one of which was a cooking class. The other was a wine class. Great. Well, guess which one I chose?

Jonathan:
The wine class?

Jeffrey:
No. Oh, no. I didn't want to have I had no knowledge of wine. I didn't care about wine. I wanted to take the cooking class. Apparently because most of the students there through this organization were women. Of course.

Jonathan:
There it is.

Jeffrey:
Most of the women were taking cooking classes. They were not taking the wine class. What happened was the cooking class got all booked up and I couldn't take it. So I had to, by default, enter the wine class.

Jonathan:
Where it would be mostly men.

Jeffrey:
No, it was a mixture of guys and gals. And what happened was there was a fellow by the name of John Winroth who was giving classes on the subject of wine on behalf of a gentleman named Stephen Spurrier, that gentleman I mentioned earlier. It was Stephen Spurrier's organization. He owned a wine shop in Paris called Les Caves de la Madeleine. and he was planning on opening a wine school. The school had not yet opened. Actually, there wasn't even a physical structure for the school, which was being rebuilt next to, I believe, a locksmith shop or in place of a locksmith shop next to the store called Les Caves de la Madeleine, a fine, really great wine shop, one of the finest wine shops in Paris at the time. So instead of giving classes in a school setting, we went from cafe to cafe in Paris, each one specializing in a different region of France. And John Winroth and Stephen Spurrier gave these classes to a group of motley students of which I was one. And After my first class, which was at a cafe called La Tartine on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris, we were drinking Sancerre and all kinds of great Loire Valley wines. I just fell in love with this concept of tasting wine. And as we were going along, they were asking for feedback from the students, and I boldly gave my feedback about different wines. And at the end of the class, Stephen and John said, you have a good palate. You have a really good palate. And that's all I needed to know. I needed, and I said, okay, I'm not going to, I'm going to give up my philosophy studies, which is what I was doing, and I'm going to try to orient myself toward wine. And this is the background, backdrop of this episode all about a tribute to Stephen Spurrier. We are honored to have with us today Stephen's son, Christian Spurrier. And Christian doesn't know, he wouldn't remember this, when he was a young tyke, how old I don't know, but really young, I did get to meet him in the store, in the Carre de la Madeleine in Paris. I know that there was one occasion when I was able to meet him. He was with his mother, Bella, whose name is Arabella, Stephen's wife. And now I can properly introduce Christian Spurrier, the son of Stephen Spurrier. And in his own right, he is a very well-known screenwriter. lots of different things to his credit, which we can go over as well. But let's bring in Christian Spurrier and thank him for being part of the Cocktail Guru podcast and this very special, the most special episode that I have ever done yet because it's about my mentor, his father, Stephen Spurrier. Welcome, Christian.

Christian:
Thanks. It's lovely to be here. That lovely intro. Thank you so much. You're welcome.

Jeffrey:
And I had I had even more in the intro, but I decided to cut it shorter because we can go over a lot of things during our discussion together rather than just hearing me talk about it. So this this meeting your father literally changed my life. I went from a student of philosophy who was planning to go to graduate school on philosophy and become a philosophy professor to falling in love with wine.

Jonathan:
This is much more interesting. I'm glad you did not become a philosophy professor.

Jeffrey:
Thank you, John. Yes, that's what I thought. This is far more interesting. Why am I bothering with philosophy when I can just sit around, go to cafes in Paris, and drink wonderful wine like this port? This is a vintage port, by the way. And that's why it was in tribute to, as a tribute to Stephen, because he apparently cut his teeth on a 1908 vintage board, which was given to him by his grandfather.

Christian:
Well, that's the story that he was 10 years old. So it would have been Christmas 1951. And not having really thought about wine, like most 10 year olds, I guess, given any attention, he was coming down for some Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch, and his granddad just stuck a glass or something underneath his nose and said, have a sniff of this old boy. And, and my dad says at that moment, His life changed. And it's funny because we all have our images of the 1950s and England in the 1950s. And we can be sure it was a pretty stuffy and restricting place. And in my mind, and I'm sure it was like this for my dad as well. The world suddenly goes from black and white to technicolor. You know, yeah, it's, you know, everything's in black and white. And then that glass of port is in color. And my father sort of sensed something he sensed it was, you know, the way he described his upbringing was as literally fantastically boring, like so boring, you couldn't work out how to get from one end of the day to the other, you know, I'm sure that was, I'm sure there was a lot of truth in it. And so unconsciously, or maybe even consciously, he was a young man, very young man looking for something. And all of a sudden, um, this mysterious substance, you know, of color and depth, and flavor and aroma offered him a sense of another world of different places that could be discovered away from the kind of stuffy beans on toast, bald cabbage kind of reality of England in the 1950s. And he was always really clear in his mind that that was the beginning of the journey. And from then he really couldn't be held back. He was he sort of persuaded his parents to let him go to Spain with an older friend when I think he was only 14 or 15. And off they went to vineyards, you know. So so it was a really, really strong passion from a really long age. However, It took him a little while to work out that it could also be his life, because he did try and do some sensible things before then, until fate washed him up in Paris, totally broke, flat broke at 30, and that's when the story that you connected with really began.

Jeffrey:
Yes, and that was in 1970, I believe, when he bought Les Cœurs de la Berlin. Yeah. And just turned the wine, started to turn the wine world upside down. Even at that stage, we'll get into what really turned the wine world upside down in a little while. But in 1970, he was touting, of course, the virtues of French wine. The selection at that point was probably entirely French. When I got to Les Caves de la Merlin in 1972, 73, he had already started selling some California wines, adding California wines to the selection. But I think prior to that, that was probably just the beginning of his California wine selection. Prior to that, it was all French wine. And I would say Most of it was very delicious, very reasonably priced French wines. That's how I cut my teeth on wine. That's how I was educated by your father. It was on finding delicious wines at reasonable prices. And I have never wavered from that. Never, never. I get mad. I'm very mad at the world of wine. today i'm very mad and i need to this is when i'm going to vent i think a little bit because wine prices are just so crazy in general for many of the wines that i would like to drink but i can't drink them because i can't afford to buy them so the wine world has really been turned upside down for a number of reasons and i think um as we'll see later your father is one of the factors for that situation yeah um

Christian:
I think you're entirely right. And because what came after, which I'm sure we'll get into, became so celebrated and famous, the first part of his story has been somewhat forgotten, which is that he'd already broken new ground and fomented a kind of not really a revolution, but a mini sort of awakening, if that's not too grandiose a word, in wine, because the wine world was just so stuffy and so conservative and so hierarchical. And you basically drank red Bordeaux and white Burgundy And the only reason you didn't drink red Bordeaux, white Burgundy is if you happen to be living in the Rhone or living in the Loire. And then you knew about the fact that some of these wines were great. And from so early on, it was just his absolute obsession that there was stunning, fascinating, brilliant wines coming from everywhere in France. And he was absolutely determined to let the world know. And he'd had a go in London, actually, before. I had a failed wine shop in London called Murray & Banbury. and then tried to do something else. And it was only when he got to Paris, and thought again, and found, chanced on La Cave de la Madeleine and thought, no, hang on, I've got to try and do this again, that he found a more receptive audience. And the irony of this is that, that that receptive audience wasn't made up of English people like him. It was made up of some French people, but also very much Americans like yourself in Paris, who was such a huge part of the success of that shop. And and in the whole world of Francophile, Europhile Americans in Paris and around the embassy, which was local to the shop and was his big early patron, basically.

Jeffrey:
That's what I was going to say, that the shop was located very close to the American embassy. Yes. One of the reasons why there were so many Americans buying wine at Les Caves La Madeleine, as well as businessmen who were stationed in Paris from a variety of companies. And of course, Frenchmen who were businessmen, for the most part, who were in the area and who heard about the store and they would go and pick up great wines at great prices. I mean, really, Stephen was selling value wines. He was bringing the notion, you're right, before that, we were drinking expensive Bordeaux's and expensive Burgundy's, that's what most people thought of when they went out to buy a bottle of wine. He discovered fantastic wine, great small vineyards, small properties in every region of France, brought them back to the shop and sold them at very reasonable prices to the expats, American expats, and to the local Frenchmen as well, and became very, very well known for that reason. prior to the big event in 1976. So from 1970 until 1976, he was known as the English wine merchant, and we neglected to mention that Stephen was an Englishman selling French wine in Paris. I mean, how ridiculous and revolutionary is that? I mean, that's crazy.

Christian:
And it was a story that was picked up on, and even before you know, the the world shattering events or wine world shattering events of 76. Recently, we had some archivists from UC Davis come over, they were very keen to look at my dad's papers and bring and start creating the Steven Spurrier archive. And so we got his old cuttings books out because he used to cut out and keep articles. And it was really fun to see that even before 76, the English press and some of the French press had picked up on the quirkiness of this, you know, meet the dapper Englishman who's selling wine, to the French, you know, it was a sort of hilarious notion. Sure. And, and sort of English people love anything that makes them feel superior to the French. So so they were lapping up the story. And it was all going really, really well. And as you experienced, there was this vibrant world and community that grew up around the shop. Which he added to with the wine school, you know I would be there after school walking with my satchel on my back And it was just a great place to be with with fantastic energy and a real sense that something special was going on Yes, and I ran into you Christian at one point.

Jeffrey:
I remember this cute little kid running around the shop It was

Jonathan:
So we're going to take a quick break now and then when we get back we will talk about the much alluded to 1976 experience that some people may know of and some people may not know of. So we'll be right back. The Cocktail Guru has some very exciting news. We now sell booze. That's right. You can now browse our shop for Cocktail Guru swag and your favorite spirits in the same place. We personally have chosen all of the items in our store. Are you looking for a water bottle with stainless steel straw? We've got it. T-shirts? Hoodies? Snapback hats? Yup, we've got that. We've even managed to create a onesie for that little mocktail lover in your family. But wait, there's more. A cocktail shop wouldn't be complete without bar tools, cocktail box kits, and some of your favorite spirits. So head on over to shop.thecocktailguru.com and see what's new. You can use code GURU24 for 10% off your first order of non-alcoholic merchandise at the checkout. That's shop.cocktailguru.com. 10% off swag with code GURU24. Cheers. You must be 21 years old. Purchase alcohol and restrictions may apply based on your location. And now we're back.

Jeffrey:
We're back. And I do have to say that for some Americans, the name Stephen Spurrier makes them think of an American football player, because there was a very... Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Gators, the Gators coach. Yeah, I don't even remember. Honestly, I wasn't really following things closely in those days, but I know Steven Spurrier was a very well-known football player. This is not that same man. This is Steven Spurrier, the Englishman who became one of the most famous figures in the world of wine. And should we talk about why that is true? Should we get into that? Let's. Oh, let's. I did want to say that, you know, there's so much to say. Stephen, he was such a kind man, such a gentle man. He was just so kind to me. Who was I was some lowly hippie student with a beard and long hair. And he was treated me just so kindly and encouraged me to continue learning about wine and tasting wine. And someone in one of the articles that I read wrote, a man of modesty and politesse. That's a very apt description of your father. Modesty, but right up to the very end, even after he became exceptionally famous.

Christian:
Yeah, and I think that helped him out with the French because they've always had a fatal weakness for an English gentleman, you know, and they didn't come much better presented than my father, really. You know, wherever he was, even if he was driving up a dusty track, banging on a door to persuade a reluctant green year old to come out, he was still wearing a German street shirt, you know, and a Savile Row suit. So I think I think without, he was just being himself. But he had a certain dandyishness, I suppose, which definitely didn't do him any harm.

Jeffrey:
And that was a bit of a contrast, I would say to the location in which he found himself, because the Quai de la Madeleine was in a beautiful, beautiful, dingy, dirty alleyway. Unfortunately, it isn't anymore. It was a dingy, dark alleyway with a bustling, bustling, like you see in old movies about the marketplaces in Paris and around the world. There was a butcher shop. There was a locksmith. There were all kinds of things. There was an épicerie, I believe, and a restaurant or two. There was Le Moulin du Village, but that came later, I believe, and your father helped open that restaurant, Le Moulin du Village, along with Willy's Wine Bar, too. two establishments that he was deeply involved in, as well.

Christian:
The Moulin des Villages was already so so yeah, just to paint a picture, this is a kind of uncovered and open sort of arcade arcade, a kind of alley really running from the Rue Royale to the Rue Boissianglas, I think, and it's a reasonably snazzy area. But this was exactly as you describe it a little bit of working class Paris that had survived. And you could you could there was still sawdust on the ground and and a bustling working class market every every kind of Tuesday and Friday, you know, a lunch place where the start they only served sardines and steak and the sardines came in their own tin. And so it was like Paris in the raw and and right in the middle of it. He created this fine wine establishment And because that was a success, he built the wine school. And then he started to sort of empire build in this alley. He bought the Mulander Village, which is a very old school sort of paint peeling, French brasserie. Then he turned this fur shop next door to it called the Blue Fox into the Blue Fox bar. That's right. And the Blue Fox bar is a bit forgotten now. But if you've ever been into and we all have been those hipster joints that sell wine by the glass, and you know, put up a blackboard list of what they've got, well, The Blue Fox was the first of those, the very first, the daddy of those. And I remember I was only 11 or 12 when it opened, but I remember he said to me, Christian, one day, people are just going to want to buy wine by the glass. They're not going to want a whole bottle. And he was pitching this thing, and he had the whole vision in his mind. And it was the peeled back brick work. It was the whole look, the whole vibe of Brooklyn 2020 back in Paris 1970.

Jeffrey:
Exactly. And this concept was transported to the United States. There was nothing like this in the United States. There was nothing like this in most parts of the world, I would venture to say. I may be wrong about that. But in areas that produced wine, there may very well have been wine bars that sold wine by the glass. But in the United States, no. That was a revolutionary new concept, which I firmly believe was spurred on by your father. and became a trend only because of what was going on in Paris at the time, because many Americans who ended up in the wine industry and the restaurant industry found their way to the L'Académie du Vin, the wine schools, L'Académie du Vin, and they would come, they would make pilgrimages to see your father and take classes at the Académie, and this all helped them to bring these concepts to their mind, to the forefront of their mind. And when they got back to the States, they started opening up wine bars and restaurants that mimicked what was going on there in Paris.

Christian:
Absolutely. And I think At the core of it was his idea, really, that wine should be as accessible as possible. He just had this one mission, really, which is to share the joy and the excitement and the passion that he felt for the whole thing. He really wanted to get everyone away from a world where, I don't know, you had to go to a special place and put on a special jacket just to drink wine. You had to sit there reverentially while some guy you know, in gloves, kind of performed the ritual and and poured out the glass, you know, for him, he just wanted to connect you straight to the wine, and in a way straight to the vineyard, straight to the vineyard, you know, he wanted you to feel and taste and almost be in that vineyard, as you were drinking the wine. And that was his mission in life. And the food side of it was important too, because he wanted to pull away the stuffiness, you know, there too, and just present food that was relaxed, that was easy, and you could just have it alongside the wine, you know.

Jeffrey:
And because of the wine classes that I took with your father, with Stephen, and with John Winroth, I must mention John Winroth, because he's very important to me as well. Um, I let my philosophy studies slide and I started traveling and visiting all the different vineyards throughout France that I possibly could. I only confined myself to France and took what I learned and started developing my own concepts about wine and my own palate. And eventually I too became a wine writer when I got back to the United States and wrote a book on wine. Only because of your father's influence, the book was called How to Read a Wine Label. And that's what I learned to do when I was studying at l'Académie du Vin with Stephen and with John. I learned how to read. That's what I was doing. I was reading wine labels like crazy, tasting the wine, making associations, and providing my opinions in little notebooks, like your father probably did when he was in his younger days.

Christian:
Absolutely, and we've still got them stacked up at home. But you're right, it was a great moment of democratization of wine. Yes. You know, this feeling that it was for everyone. As you observed in your introduction, that wine elitism finds a way to creep back in, you know, and it's very frustrating. And we almost need to do the whole thing again. Now, I think there's whole levels of pretension and obscurity around different types of wine now natural wine. You know, so, um, but, but for that time, it was just a wonderful time of opening up. And, you know, he was, his dream was certainly coming true in a way that he hadn't expected either, which is just to share what he loved.

Jeffrey:
And I follow, try to follow in those footsteps because Jonathan and I are restaurant consultants. So he creates cocktails and mixology programs for restaurants, and I. Produced the wine lists for them, and we just did a wine list in Massachusetts and a little beautiful little restaurant there. And all the wines that I put on this list were wines that I wanted to be really good, delicious wines at very good prices, at values, prices where, at which the restaurant could make some money, but at which the consumer could buy these wines and say, oh, that's, you know, this is delicious wine at a really good price. That's what I've been doing from the beginning of time since Jonathan and I have been consultants, which is quite a few years now.

Christian:
Well, I think that's brilliant. I think the price point is easily dismissed because in wine, you can develop this attitude of excellence at any cost. Actually, I think it was a very important thing to my father because I think his attitude was wine is about pleasure. It's about enjoyment. You can't enjoy something if you feel you're being ripped off. If you feel you're paying three times too much for the bottle you're drinking, it's no fun anymore. So it was absolutely part of his thing, you know, that he could go to it, we I would go to restaurants with him countless times, and they would put this enormous great wine list in front of him. And he would hate it, he would loathe it, because he could see that it was all the wines they they they had, because they felt they ought to have them and the markups were a disgrace. So yes, that was the opposite of what he wanted from a wine list. What he wanted from a wine list was six wines beautifully chosen,

Jeffrey:
you know with personal with a personal feeling behind them and at great value you know that was his philosophy that's exactly the way i feel when i receive a wine list as well and i've been trying to do everything i can to fight that concept well can we can we please we're going to please talk about that's what we're going to do 76 we're going to talk about this right now i don't know if you can see that i can't i can't really

Christian:
Yeah, so that's George's book, George Tabor's book.

Jeffrey:
That's right. Judgment of Paris.

Jonathan:
Yeah. Tell us about the Judgment of Paris right after this break.

Barrel Room Chronicles:
Last season on Barrel Room Chronicles, I embarked on an amazing journey through Ireland from Dingle to Belfast and nearly everything in between. Now I'm going to do it all over again. But this time you're invited. That's right. Join me this September for a trip of a lifetime through the rich tapestry of Irish whiskey culture. We'll visit iconic locations such as the Titanic Experience and the new Titanic Distillery. and tour through the lush Irish landscapes and visit filming locations from hit TV series Game of Thrones. We'll also visit historic sites, including cathedrals, jails, castles, and more. Plus, we'll get to distill our very own batch of chronic healthy gin. To find out more or to book now, visit barrelroomchronicles.com and click on the Brock Tours photos.

Jonathan:
And now we're back. Let's go. Judgment of Paris.

Jeffrey:
Please, Christian, tell us about What occurred in 1976 and how this revolutionized the world?

Christian:
So as you mentioned, one of the early factors behind the success of my father's wine shop was the American expat community and the proximity of the U.S. Embassy. And he built this great relationship with his U.S. clients. And he also had a wonderful partner, Patricia Gallagher, who was American. And between them and the conversations they were having and the odd enthusiast bringing his bottle in, they started to realize that there was some really pretty good wines being made in in California. And it was 1976, which is the American bicentennial. And they were always looking for a reason to promote the shop. And so my father decided and it was just literally a promotional gimmick. That's all it was meant to be. My father decided that it would be really good fun. If they got some of these kind of oddball Californian wines they've been hearing about. And they just tasted them alongside the French wines, the cream of French wines, and just gave people a chance to see that actually these California wines weren't bad, you know, and they were interesting. And he got out his little contacts book and phoned around and got the cream of the French wine tasting and started to join him on the basis that it was just going to be a bit of fun, you know. And they arranged this tasting with 10, California wines and 10 French wines. They gathered in the Mulande Village restaurant, which you've mentioned. And the very last minute, five minutes before the event started, my father decided it would be more fun if it would be a blind tasting. That's literally what happened. It was never intended to be a blind tasting. And I don't think blind tastings were even a thing then. I mean, I think they were very rare occasions. So they covered the bottles in tinfoil. And these five French wine judges, very eminent wine judges started to taste the wines. My mother was a photographer at that time. And she'd happened to knock off early and started taking some photographs. George Tabor, whose book cover you've just shown, had a press conference that finished early, and so he went, what the hell, I'll just see what's happening at Spurrius Tasting. And they started to taste the wines, and as the wines were tasted one by one, my father began to notice a trend, which is that whenever the French wine judges thought they were tasting French wines, they were actually tasting American wines and vice versa. And these guys, Odette Kahn and Christian Vanneke, really, really eminent wine tasters were sweating the glasses and going, you can see it's completely dead. It's Californian, and it would be a French wine, you know, or they will be going, oh, back to Bordeaux, back to France, and it would be Stag's Leap, you know, and so my father realized that something really remarkable was happening. But of course, he hadn't realized that Once all those tasting cards were handed over, he would actually have concrete proof of that. And as he and Patricia did the sums, they realized that the American wines had beaten the French wines in every single category. It was a total trouncing. And so they announced the result. A total silence fell over the room. I mean, a complete shock and bewilderment. And Odette Kahn, who was then the head of the French Ideological Society, marched up to my father and said, that tasting card belongs to me. I mean, she saw in that second, she saw that she had awarded top points to American wines over French wines. And my father was suddenly in an extraordinary position, you know, having befriended all these people, you know, joined their community in a way. He had a split second decision to make. And he just said, I'm so sorry, Odette, as you probably know, well, no, this is my tasting and the car belongs to me. And that was it. And she stormed out and said, You will regret this. And as you as you know, George filed his story for time. It absolutely erupted. He was on the front page of the Figaro a week later. I think that some of the Montalina guys were on a wine tour in France when somebody called them up and gave them the news. But the California producers were just stunned and euphoric. And the wine world was never the same again. For modern wine, it was a moment in which the world of wine shifted on its axis. And it's just one of those things where it would have happened anyway. The world would have found out how great California wines were, you know, all that would have happened. But just the way these characters came together in that room on that day with that personnel in that manner, just encapsulated the story so beautifully that it just became the, in some ways, the seminal moment in the modern history of wine.

Jeffrey:
Of course, because now everybody, the world knew that California was producing really good, really legitimate wines. something that didn't even enter most people's minds, including Americans, including people like me. I came back to the United States in 1975 after living in Paris for a couple of years, and I found myself involved in different wine communities. And we were drinking these wines, these very wines, because they were the founding fathers of the modern wine industry in California. And the wines were really, really good. So we knew prior to 76, well, about a year prior, I was drinking a lot of those wines and knew how good they were. And then in 76, the wine shops started booming around the country. Everybody was buying wine. Chardonnay became the thing. Everyone was hosting Chardonnay parties. And of course, Stag's Leap wine cellars, 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon became just the thing to buy because that was the wine that won. The wines that were tasted, the French wines were white burgundies and red Bordeauxs. So, Stag's Leap beat all the great Bordeauxs and Montelena beat all the great Chardonnays.

Christian:
Yes. And just as important as the point you've made about the world seeing suddenly the quality of California wines, the world also saw that the French didn't have a monopoly on this anymore. They were no longer in a position to tell the whole world what was good and what wasn't good. And I think in a way, that was the more significant moment, both in France and also around the world. You can imagine in 1976, if you're, you know, I don't know, in the a guy trying to make wine in the Margaret River in Australia, or in Chile, and you're bashing away, you're not getting much recognition. Suddenly, there's a tasting in Paris that tells you, hang on a second, these wines that are from France can get recognition, they can get respect. So it went around the world of wine like an electric shock. And I think so, All of the trends that you saw following after that in the eighties, the big trend, of course, was Australian wine, just absolutely. New Zealand wine took the market by storm, the full-bodied, highly accessible character of those wines. Then in the nineties, the way South American wines from Argentina and Chile and Uruguay emerged and started really staking a claim to me, these things are also consequences of the judgment of Paris, you know, they came in the wake of that, and, and, and were part of that. And then, of course, though, the French were pretty upset, and they, you know, accused him of having spat in his in their soup, you know, and he suffered quite a bit in France after that, from the from the backlash. Well, he did them a massive favor, really. And they recognize that because they finally You know, these owners went into their own wineries for the first time in decades and said, Oh my God, no wonder our wines are terrible. Look at the state of our barrels. Look at the state of our tanks. They started to get in there. And that's the beginning of the kind of winery revolution where people started to really, really get involved in making these wines and being much more adventurous, uh, and audacious in that.

Jonathan:
Well, Christian and dad, we just have a couple of minutes left. I know as always, we could keep going on and on.

Jeffrey:
Yes, we could.

Jonathan:
I'm Christian before we let you go. What do you Christian Spurrier do at this moment in time?

Christian:
So I'm a screenwriter. I've been writing screenplays here in the UK for 20 years or so I've got a show on Netflix at the moment called the playlist. And before that I was writing for tons of shows in the UK. Also recently I combined that with stepping into the vineyard my father established in the UK, Bride Valley Vineyard, which was an English sparkling wine. And that was a tremendous experience. And I loved following my father's footsteps. But that's now over because we had to find a different custodian for that. So that was wonderful. And that was his last great experiment, really, to step into English wine.

Jonathan:
Well, I wonder if you're familiar with the English screenwriter who is working on my mother-in-law's book. She has a book that is called Ruthless River, and it's a book that's about how she and her husband, my in-laws, were stranded on the Amazon River for 28 days without any supplies in the 70s. And so it's being optioned by Matt Sharman. who also I think has a Netflix series. Maybe in a similar, I think it's a crime, you know, British crime drama type of thing. But yeah, it's very interesting. Fantastic.

Christian:
Fantastic. That's great. I think he's a great writer. So that's very good for your mother-in-law's project.

Jeffrey:
Oh, and Christian, you have a project, don't you, with Bride Valley?

Christian:
We have a little project. Yes. We've just it's it's kind of my final involvement in wine after stepping away from the vineyard. We've done some memorial magnums to commemorate my dad and the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Academy Du Vin. And we'll be selling those for there's a tiny, very limited number of these. Only 300 have ever been bottled. And we want to make sure they go to people that really sort of loved and supported my father. And also, we're going to sell some for charity. So I'll be in touch about that. We're going to hold some events in the autumn. And maybe I'll let you know what's going to happen with that.

Jeffrey:
Fantastic. Terrific.

Jonathan:
Christian Spurrier, this has been a really nice conversation. We're so thankful that your father, Steve, did everything that he did. Obviously, we would not have dad's career, we would not have my career. So I'm very thankful to you.

Christian:
It's been a pleasure. It's been really good fun to talk about it and really nice to meet you again after all these years, Jeffrey. And great to meet you, Jonathan.

Jeffrey:
Thank you, Christian. Great to meet you again as well. And thank you. We are deeply grateful for this opportunity.

Jonathan:
That does it for today's show.

Jeffrey:
If you enjoy what we do, please rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast.

Jonathan:
To watch or listen to today's episode, or to see the show notes, visit TheCocktailGuruPodcast.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, YouTube, X, Instagram, or TikTok.

Announcer:
The Cocktail Guru Podcast is produced by First Real Entertainment and can be seen on EatsDrinksTV.com, Spotify, and Zencastr, or heard on Apple, Google, Amazon, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.