frogsmoke.com

It was a calamity for French viticulture - and it sparked a wine war that rages even to this day.

In 1976 a group of 11 distinguished wine experts were asked to compare some of France's finest wines with some little-known California bottles in a blind test. At the time it was carved in stone that France produced the best wines in the world.

When the unthinkable happened and every one of the judges - nine of them French - awarded top marks to the American wines, the reaction brought a whole new meaning to the phrase grapes of wrath. Three decades on, French viticulture has never completely recovered and some in France still find the event too painful to discuss.

Now, the movie 'Bottle Shock' [IMdB] is opening those old wounds. The film takes a romantic view of wine-making and the significance of that long-ago tasting, embellishing and heightening the drama for the screen. The film stars Alan Rickman as British-born, Paris-based wine merchant Steven Spurrier, who organized the tasting. Here's the trailer:

On Wikipedia: Judgment of Paris