A judge tastes wines from France and Virginia in a blind tasting, Monday, June 29, 2026, at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris.
LE CORDON BLEU
What bearing the tasting will have on the Virginia wine country has yet to be seen, but if history is any precedent it can only be good news.
The Paris Wine Tasting of 1976, also known as the Judgment of Paris, helped Napa Valley break out on the international stage and kicked off a boom for Golden State vintners. California’s wine industry is now worth an estimated $85 billion and it is regarded as the premier winemaking state in America, in both quantity and quality.
In the 1976 competition, held to commemorate the United States bicentennial, French oenophiles participated in two blind tasting comparisons: one of top-quality chardonnays and another of Bordeaux wines from France and cabernet sauvignon wines from California. A wine from California’s Napa Valley was rated best in each category, stunning the world.
California’s wine industry is now worth an estimated $85 billion.
Virginia’s wine industry, by comparison, is worth $8 billion. And although its wines regularly wine honors on national and international stages — including a record-breaking number of medals from the Decanter World Wine Awards earlier this year — commonwealth vintners have struggled to expand their distribution and gain exposure.
That could be changing soon.
Not only could the recent Paris tasting help propel Virginia wine forward, but more locally, wineries have taken it upon themselves to seek additional investment in order to grow.
Afton-based Veritas Vineyard and Winery in May announced that it would be acquired by a Charlottesville-based investment group for an undisclosed sum.
A judge tastes wines from France and Virginia in a blind tasting, Monday, June 29, 2026, at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris.
LE CORDON BLEU
“[The sale is] really a new partnership to move the brand forward, improve the quality of the experience, improve the quality of the wine, improve the quantity of the wine, so that we can get into other places, other markets,” George Hodson, CEO of Veritas, told The Daily Progress on May 28.
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