How California disrupted the French wine industry
Much as I love France, who sold us the idea of superior French taste in the first place? Why do we continue to beat ourselves up about their supposedly ultra-cool cinema, peerless fashion sense and exquisite food and drink? Has anyone contemplating the pool of congealing demi-glace set before them at a standard-issue Paris café been able to maintain any delusion of French grandeur? As it happens, a significant blow to French national pride in these matters came almost exactly 50 years ago, at the Paris Intercontinental Hotel, where, in a blind tasting watched over by the world’s media, ten of the host country’s best vintages were set in contest against upstarts from California.
