Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting that Revolutionized Wine

This is more than just the story of the 1976 Paris tasting. It is also a great read for wine novices, as it covers most wine-making regions and grapes used around the world, as well as the process of growing grapes and making wine, with a particular focus on the history of wine production in Napa (and California in general).

Let me start by saying I don't know much about wine, so this book was clearly not aimed at me. However, I'm not sure who the audience is for it. The part that talks about the famous Paris tasting in 1976 was fascinating. The intensive history of the California wine industry was a little dry but also fairly interesting. The crazy amount of detail the author provides in his overview of all wine traditions the world over was a little much.

The author himself admits that wine names are almost impossible to remember and then goes on to sling a large number of wine names and wineries around along with their history and details of how they are made and the general price. My head was swimming! I like the history but didn't care for the rest.

What could have and should have been a compelling tale, wasn't. Taber was too much in reporter mode. This tale needed a story teller. Too bad it didn't have one. Taber made it dry and boring with too much history and too much postlude. The actual event was maybe just little more than a chapter in the book. Very disappointing.

A very detailed account of wine-making in California. But it got bogged down too much in this detail for my tastes and, ultimately, I stopped reading three-quarters of the way through.

I didn't finish, but got the gist. Well done-just more information than I an interested in.