Judgment of Bentonville

The Judgment of Bentonville was a very special event in celebration of the 50^th Anniversary of the Judgment of Paris. This unique event was held at Muselet, one of Bentonville’s newest restaurants. The restaurant closed to the public on April 11 to host this event for IWFS Arkansas members and guests. 

Unlike the original event, participants were treated to culinary pairings by Chef Aaron Walters.  Along with those bites, blind tastings of 5 flights of wines accompanied the delicious food.

But what about the wines?  In 1976, Steven Spurrier sourced Chardonnay and Bordeaux-style reds from the Napa Valley, then a relatively unknown source of quality wines.  They were pitted against highly regarded reds from Bordeaux and whites from Burgundy.  For this event, we kept France as the benchmark, but most of the competitors came from much further afield than Napa.

The original Judgment of Paris.  Steven Spurrier is 6th from left.

We decided to go this route because there are so many quality wines being made in places that didn't exist (wine-wise) in 1976.  In fact, many French wine companies own property in other parts of the world, having seen the high quality and potential of wines being made in places like Anderson Valley California, Oregon, Australia and South America.  In fact, two of our courses exhibited this very trend.

While we don't anticipate the Judgment of Bentonville to have quite the earthshaking effect of Mr. Spurrier's event.  But we do know it was an eye-opening and frankly, delicious, trip around today's world of wine.

And by the way, just like in 1976, France was bested by the competition.  It was very close, but the New World selections won a slim majority of the tasting flights.

Muselet proved to be a superb destination.  For more information, please visit them in person.  Their website can be found by clicking here:  Muselet Champagne Bar - Bentonville's Premier Champagne Destination.

NOTE: If you haven’t read The Judgment of Paris, by George M. Taber, you might want to check it out. This is the story of the legendary Paris Tasting of 1976, where a panel of top French wine experts compared some of France’s most famous wines with a new generation of California wines. It ranks alongside Kermit Lynch's Adventures on the Wine Route as one of the greatest books ever written about wine.