Clos Du Val Winery
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Clos Du Val Winery was founded by two men who were born into the French wine business, John Goelet and Bernard Portet. After scouting the world for two years to locate areas where they might produce Bordeaux-style wine, Porter identified the then-undiscovered Stag’s Leap district of California’s Napa Valley as especially promising.
Goelet bought 150 acres and established the winery in 1972. The next year he bought 180 acres in the Carneros area. The winery received international recognition when its first vintage of Cabernet Sauvignon (1972) was selected for competition in the historic Paris Wine Tasting of 1976.
In the French Culinary Institute Wine Tasting of 1986, conducted on the tenth anniversary of the Paris tasting. Steven Spurrier, who had organized the latter event, assisted in the anniversary tasting. Eight judges blind tasted nine of the ten wines evaluated earlier to evaluate how well they had aged. White wines were not evaluated in the belief that they were past their prime. Clos Du Val Winery won first place, beating all French competitors: Château Montrose, Château Leoville Las Cases, Château Mouton Rothschild, and Château Haut-Brion. These are among the most prestigious wines produced in France. They had achieved such high reputations by 1855 that they were ranked in the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855 as being among the top handful of best wines of Bordeaux. In addition, three of the four were from the 1970 vintage, identified by the Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux as among the four best vintages in the past 45 years or more. The third Bordeaux was a 1971, described by the Conseil as "very good” [1], Thus, they were the “best of the best.”
The Wine Rematch of the Century has held in 2006 on the 30th anniversary of the Paris competition to evaluate how well the wines had aged. The two panels of expert judges awarded Clos Du Val fifth place, beating all its French competitors.
[edit] See also
[edit] Sources
- Taber, George M. Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting that revolutionized wine. NY: Scribner, 2005.
- Clos Du Val Winery
