The Great Chardonnay Showdown, held in the spring of 1980, was organized by Craig Goldwyn, the

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

columnist for the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

'' and the founder of the

Beverage Testing Institute The Beverage Testing Institute (BTI) is a marketing service company that provides reviews for spirits, wines, and beers. It uses numerical scores and publishes books of its test results. The company's beer marketing program, the World Beer Champion ...

, with help from three

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

wine stores. A total of 221

Chardonnay Chardonnay (, , ) is a green-skinned grape variety used in the production of white wine. The variety originated in the Burgundy wine region of eastern French wine, France, but is now grown wherever wine is produced, from English wine, Englan ...

s from around the world were selected for the blind

wine competition A wine competition is an organized event in which trained judges or consumers competitively rate different vintages, categories, and/or brands of wine. Wine competitions generally use blind tasting of wine to prevent bias by the judges. Types of ...

.Grgich Hills Estate celebrates the 35th anniversary of The Great Chicago Chardonnay Showdown: Chicago Tribune called 1977 Chardonnay "The Best Chardonnay in the World"
January 15, 2015, PRNewswire/Grgich Hills Estate

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

and

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

were heavily represented, but entries from many countries around the world were included.

Competition

Five panels of five judges each first selected 19 finalists. Then ten of the original judges reviewed the finalists a second time. The winning wine was the Grgich Hills Wine Cellar

Sonoma County Sonoma County () is a county (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, its population was 488,863. Its county seat and largest city is Santa Rosa, California, Santa Rosa. It is to the n ...

Chardonnay 1977, which was the new winery's very first

vintage Vintage, in winemaking, is the process of picking grapes and creating the finished product—wine (see Harvest (wine)). A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown and harvested in a single specified year. In certa ...

. The winemaker was

Mike Grgich Miljenko "Mike" Grgić (born April 1, 1923) is a Croatian-American winemaker in California. He was born into a winemaking family in the town of Desne on Croatia's coastal region of Dalmatia. He is notable for being the winemaker behind the 197 ...

, who had earlier made the

Chateau Montelena Chateau Montelena is a Napa Valley winery most famous for winning the white wine section of the historic "Judgment of Paris" wine competition. Chateau Montelena's Chardonnay was in competition with nine other wines from France and California und ...

Chardonnay that won first place among white wines at the historic

Judgment of Paris Judgement (or US spelling judgment) is also known as ''adjudication'', which means the evaluation of evidence to decision-making, make a decision. Judgement is also the ability to make considered decisions. The term has at least five distinct u ...

Competition

See also

References

Further reading