George Taber, author of Judgment of Paris,
takes a look at the Bargain Wine Revolution

I met George Taber, the author of Judgment of Paris, the 2006 wine book that told the story of the seminal 1976 blind tasting in Paris where a panel of top French wine experts choose unknown California wines over some of France’s finest wines, at the 2011 European Wine Bloggers Conference. This tasting shocked the wine industry and his recounting of the tale won Taber Decanter magazine’s Wine Book of the Year award.

Taber, who was the only journalist present at this legendary tasting, was a reporter and editor for Time magazine for years. He gave the keynote speech at the Blogger Conference, speaking about how wine bloggers and others who use Internet social media to discuss wine are becoming the new “gatekeepers” for wine consumers. I had time to speak to him during the conference, and he is a quiet, low-key person, who has obviously not let his fame go to his head.

He provided me with an advance copy of his newest book, A Toast to Bargain Wines, which offers a comprehensive look at the rise in popularity of bargain wines in the U.S. The sub-heading of the book is “How innovators, iconoclasts, and winemaking revolutionaries are changing the way the world drinks.” Since I haven’t lived in the U.S. in ten years, I was particularly interested in the book’s early chapters about ”iconoclasts” who have lead the wine revolution there over the past decade. Taber knows how to spin a good tale, and his profiles of Fred Franzia of “Two-Buck Chuck” fame and John Casella, who brought Australian wine (and cute “critter” labels) to American’s attention with his Yellow Tail wine, make for fascinating reading.

The chapter examining the rise of China in the wine world was also interesting. Much of it deals with the Franco-Sino relationship, as China is looking intently at France, the home of the world’s best wine, for winemaking knowledge. Frenchman Gérald Colin, who Taber calls “the emperor of wine in China,” is involved in numerous wine ventures there, most notably a joint venture between Domaines Barons de Rothschild and China’s largest state-owned investment company, CITIC, that involves developing vineyards in the Shandong province, reputed to be the country’s best grape-growing location.

Taber reports that the French “virtually own the import market” in China, and I personally have met dozens of French œnologue consultants who travel or are located in China. Three of the thirty students in my DNO (Diplôme National d’Œnologue) class are, in fact, Chinese.

The second half of the book is devoted to Taber’s “Guides to Best Buys,” wines under the price of ten dollars that he recommends. The guide is divided into varietal wines and wines from the world’s major wine-producing countries. Besides his “bargain wine” recommendations, Taber also lists two “splurge” wines, whose average price is around double the $10 limit he has set for his bargain wines.

Two years of systematic tasting of inexpensive wine went into compiling his recommendation lists, Taber explains. If the axiom that “You need to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince” is true, one must assume that a lot of bad wine had to be drunk during this process. Taber doesn’t mention any of these wines, which is unfortunate, as it would have made, in my opinion, the chapters on varietal wines and wine-producing countries even more useful.

In reading through Taber’s lists I had the same feeling of frustration that some reading this blog have expressed to me about the wines I write about being difficult or impossible to obtain in the U.S. There are a number of French wines included, but many of them appear to be blended or labeled specifically for the U.S. market. As I often have remarked to American wine-drinking friends, you can get any wine you want in France, as long as it’s a French wine.

It might not rank with his Judgment of Paris book, but Taber’s guide to bargain wines is certainly a worthwhile purchase for those on a limited wine budget.