Judgement of Paris by George M. Taber

After watching Bottle Shock, I was doing a quick search on the Internet and came upon a book written by George M. Taber, the Time reporter who was the only one covering the Paris winetasting in 1976. If ever there was a fly-on-the-wall, Taber was the chosen one. He wrote and published a book in 2005 called Judgement of Paris that gives the most factual accounting of the event, but more than that, Taber gives biographies of the major players such as Jim Barrett, Steve Spurrier, as well as those who never appear in the movie like Mike Grgich who made the Chateau Montelena Chardonnay and Warren Winiarski who made the winning red wine from Stag's Leap.
Taber's book predates the movie which was released in 2008. In the book, Taber provides a comprehensive background for the rise of California wines by going back to the start of quality winemaking in Napa Valley. He invokes people such as Agoston Haraszthy, Gustave Niebaum, Martin Ray, Andre Tchelistcheff, and J. Leland Stewart. A chapter is dedicated to the Mondavi family who played a seminal role in the production of quality wines. He also includes the impact of the UC Davis research done by Maynard Amerine and Albert J. Winkler. The chapter on the Judgement is comprised of the backgrounds of the judges as well as the wines that were included in the tasting. The actual ranking of the wines by the judges is provided at the end of the book.
Taber doesn't stop at the Judgement of Paris but rounds out the book by providing a recent look at other regions around the world that are now producing quality wines such as Australia's Penfolds Grange and New Zealand's Cloudy Bay. All in all, I enjoyed reading the account through the eyes of George Taber, fly-on-the-wall.