New Jersey wines match French wines!

Maybe all those rankings of wines don’t mean that much, at least if you really want to know which wine tastes better.

That thought occurs after reading a report on the “Judgment of Princeton,” a restaging of the famous 1976 taste test called the “Judgment of Paris.”  It was that tasting that put California wines on the map.

“The Judgment of Princeton” was staged at AAWE’s annual conference. Nine wine judges from France, Belgium and the U.S. tasted French against New Jersey wines.

The French wines selected were from the same producers as in 1976 including names such as Chateau Mouton-Rothschild and Haut Brion, priced up to $650/bottle. New Jersey wines for the competition were submitted to an informal panel of judges, who then selected the wines that would compete. These judges were not eligible to taste wines at the final competition.

The results were surprising, AAWE said. Although, the winner in each category was a French wine (Beaune Clos des Mouches for the whites and Chateau Mouton-Rothschild for the reds), New Jersey wines barely differed in their average rank from those of France. Three of the top four whites were from New Jersey. The best NJ red was ranked 3rd place. Prices for the NJ wines are typically one-third to one-twentieth of their French competitors.