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• by:
• Taber, George

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History houses, amid its illustrious artifacts, two bottles of wine: a 1973 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon, and a 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay. These are the wines that won at a now-famous blind tasting in Paris in 1976, where a panel of top French wine experts compared some of France's most famous wines with a new generation of California wines. Little did they know the wine industry would be completely transformed as a result, sparking a golden age for viticulture that extend beyond Frances borders--in Australia, Chile, South Africa, New Zealand--and across the glove.