I held history today

Today I held in my nervous hands a bottle of the most famous white wine in U.S. history: the 1973 Chardonnay that beat the best of Burgundy at the Judgment of Paris tasting.

That's winemaker Mike Grgich's signature on the bottle.

Also, look closely above the word CHARDONNAY. A common misconception about this wine is that it's purely from Napa Valley; indeed, it's often called the Chardonnay that put Napa on the world wine map.

In fact, the grapes are from "Napa and Alexander Valleys." I never see that kind of combined AVA listing anymore with two exceptions: Pride Mountain Vineyards, which sits right on the Napa/Sonoma border, and Schramsberg, which is commendably completist in listing its grape sources on the front label, even if it's 2% Marin County.

So in a sense, this wine not only represented a victory for the U.S. winemakers; it was the first victory for the cult of winemaking over the appellation system.

This bottle will probably never be opened, and shouldn't be. Even the greatest Chardonnays can't be expected to last 35 years. The contents were noticeably cloudy (no, I didn't shake it up.)

I wish I knew how good it tasted in 1976. Ironically, the bottle's owner, who had consumed a few in the past, told me, "It wasn't Montrachet." He still thinks the Judgment of Paris tasting was little more than a publicity stunt. If so, it was a highly successful one.