Judgment of Paris, written by George Taber, is about the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976. When I first skimmed the book at the bookstore, I have to say it looked like a very dry read. That said, I found the book very interesting from the perspective of entrepreneurship, economics, and romance over a period of time that outlasted the history of most businesses (remember there are relatively few businesses that are over 100 years old). Three perspectives I gleaned from the book:
- Stories of Entrepreneurship – Dreams are nice, but reality is that winemakers often needed to get cash flow positive faster than the minimum of five or so some years to go to market with red wines. Thus, white winemaking became an early recognized business model of getting things rolling with its shorter (closer to two year) timeframe. Like the hopeful winemakers than envisioned getting their dream red wines to market while producing white wine in the near-term to build up credibility, entrepreneurs of today also find that they often need to get to cash flow sooner than later while making progress (e.g., to prove out their business models and build brand reputation).
- Backdrop of Macroeconomic Conditions Affecting the Landscape – As one might find today with traditional industries and functional areas getting turned upside by web 2.0 (e.g., PR world changed by blogging, brick and mortar bookstores displaced by Amazon.com), the rigid and regulated French wine industry was "overtaken" by entrepreneurs (that is, the entrepreneurs closed a big gap and redefined the game). Californian winemakers were not encumbered by regulations as imposed in France to make wines with 100% of such and such grapes, etc. The California winemakers were able to experiment by creating wines with blends of grapes (e.g., to mellow the taste), use refrigeration techniques in conjunction fermentation research conducted in the university, etc. They slowly experimented and chipped away at a problem of making serious wines. Although the US winemaking industry was almost decimated by the Prohibition era (and both the supply chains and demand chains took many years to recover), its was a combination of entrepreneurs and survivors (the cockroaches of the wine industry) that played a key role in democratizing wine and making it what we know today (as opposed to just a sweet, jug wine industry).
- Romance of the Senses and Commitment – I have never wanted to learn how to make wine before reading this book. This book romanticizes the process of love with wine more than I can describe. With the winemaker cross tasting barrels, walking up and down the rows of the vineyard and sampling the taste of each grape until the optimal 3-4 days of harvest, watching the weather with great hope, and then turning ecstatic when things come together or being disappointed when rain brings in the mold … When I think about the fact that some of the entrepreneurs in the winemaking industry violated commonly believed codes of startups by trying to solve both supply and demand issues (as opposed to just solving existing problems with solutions 1-2 orders of magnitude better than the past), well it just makes the book even more romantic for me.
The book is not for everyone, and I have to admit that had I not learned more about wines in the past year, I might not appreciate this book to the extent I do now. What I will say is that if you are interested in learning more about wines beyond tasting, this is a good book to explore. You may not get the same experience I did, but you may still find that by reading and exploring multiple sources of info that you get an enriched view of either people, wines, international history, business, and/or marketing.