Judgment of Healdsburg: Relax, enjoy

<p>It's a really warm Thursday night at Relish Culinary's new school in Healdsburg, where a group has gathered in sleek modern seats to face teacher Tom Simoneau. Six Riedel glasses per person await filling, with a plate of Prima Donna and Bellwether Farms cheeses and a basket of Costeaux Bakery bread within reach.</p><p>A local vintner, grower, wine judge and KSRO radio's "Wine Guy," the friendly Simoneau is cruising around, greeting folks and pouring what he calls the "Wet Your Whistle" wine, a 2007 Toad Hollow Eye of the Toad Pinot Noir Rosé, a wine available off Healdsburg's town square but not part of this night's judging.</p><p>Simoneau's original notion, as billed in the Relish schedule, had been to style a tasting as "The Judgment of Healdsburg," an assessment of the town's wines as inspired by the seminal 1976 Judgment of Paris.</p><p>Back then, California cabernet sauvignons and chardonnays were pitted against their French Burgundian and Bordeaux counterparts, tasted blind by a panel of very serious French judges.</p><p>Shockingly, in both white and red categories, wines from Napa were declared the winners. That tasting, detailed in full by an American reporter from Time magazine, George Taber, made California wine a contender on the world stage.</p><p>But in the end, Simoneau's not that serious a guy. He simply wanted to know from his students: Did you like the wine or not? "We want to make it fun," he told the class.</p><p>So, with the parameters free of vintage years and varietals -- the only criterion was the wines had to be available around or near the square -- the selections cut a wide swath, from a 2006 Lake Sonoma Winery Sauvignon Blanc (grown in Dry Creek Valley) to Murphy-Goode's 2004 All-In Alexander Valley Claret. Why belabor the nuances and provenances of such different beasts?</p><p>"One thing I found interesting about asking wineries to donate their wines," Simoneau told the class, "was when I told them about the contest they went, 'Oh, well, who else is donating and what are they donating?' It created a bit of a stir."</p><p>In the end, directing the wineries simply to proffer their "best," he got everything from a Gallo Family 2006 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir to a 2006 Davis Family Guyzer Block Syrah.</p><p>Then an affirmation vote was held, a legitimate method used in wine competitions whereby tasters may vote for as many wines as they liked, yay or nay. The top four vote getters were then voted on again, with three of those ultimately earning the three top spots.</p><p>"The hope here is that by the end of the night," Simoneau explained, "you've learned a little something about how to evaluate wine, about the wines from Healdsburg and maybe you end up going to one of the tasting rooms."</p><p>Some wondered, though, if by not tasting blind, there might be biases.</p><p>"I wondered if people didn't raise their hand that they liked it," said class participant Sid Sadeghian, "is it the brand or the quality of the wine?"</p><p>Sadeghian runs the Healdsburg Wine Tour, which takes people to all manner of local wineries, big and small. Based on results of this tasting, he said he'd gotten ideas for new places to take tour-goers.</p><p>"In my experience everyone has a different palate," he said, "but you always learn."</p><p>An admirable attitude, that, but apparently not one cultivated by the French back in 1976, when wine merchant Steven Spurrier organized the Paris tasting.</p><p>"The French knew they were going to be the winners," Simoneau told his students. "But they have the tasting and Warren Winiarski's (Stag's Leap Wine Cellars) 1973 cab was the number one red and the number one white was a Chateau Montelena 1973 chardonnay."</p><p>The French judges were so up in arms, claiming the process unfair, that some of them tried to get their tasting notes back, Simoneau said.</p><p>The event has more recently inspired two films, "Bottle Shock," a lighthearted look at the Paris Tasting from Chateau Montelena's perspective, which will be in theaters this August; and "Judgment of Paris," based on Taber's full-length accounting written in 2006.</p><p>That film is still being written, as it turns out, by Hollywood screenwriter ("The Transporter," "A Walk in the Clouds," "Karate Kid") and Sonoma Valley vintner Robert Mark Kamen.</p><p>"They say Tom Hanks is going to play Steve Spurrier," Simoneau said with a laugh. "I can't wait to see the French running around trying to steal their notes. There's going to be a little hullaballoo about that."</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Virginie Boone at 521-5440 or virginie.boone@pressdemocrat.</p><p>com.</p>