This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. The countdown is on for the 2026 NFL Draft presented by Bud Light. Catch all seven rounds three days live from Pittsburgh, April 23rd through 25th. Watch every pick live on NFL Network, ESPN, and ABC.
NFL Network is also streaming with NFL Plus. It all starts Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern. Visit NFL.com slash draft for more information. Subscription required for NFL Plus.
Visit plus.nfL.com for terms. Spring is starting at the Home Depot and bringing you everyday low prices so you can wake up your yard this season. Shape up your lawn with top-brand outdoor power tools like Ryobi 40-volt mowers that have up to 50 minutes of runtime. Bring in a splash of color with spring blooms and fresh plants from the Home Depot Garden Center. Then refresh your garden beds and keep them clear of weeds with Earth Grow mulch.
Five bags for $10 to make your yard feel like new. Start your spring with low prices now through April 2nd, only at the Home Depot. Exclusions apply. See home depot.com/slash pricematch for details. Shop now.
We've been duped, hoodwinked, conned for 50 years. The lawn care industry sold us toxins in a bag and made our yards more toxic than a bad relationship. Sunday helps you ditch the chemicals and feed your lawn the good stuff: soybean proteins, iron, seaweed, molasses, ingredients that get your soil giggling like an overserved mom at the block party. Sunday uses clean ingredients in real science for thicker, greener grass. Order today and get your custom Sunday yard plan for the season ahead.
Sunday, For a smarter, healthier yard, get Sunday.com. Eczema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with Epglis. a once-monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial four-month or longer dosing phase, about four in ten people taking EPGLIS achieve itch relate and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing.
EBGLIS, Libriquizumab, LBKZ, a 250 milligram per 2 milliliter injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema, also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. EBGLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to EBGLIS. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur.
Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EBGLIS. Before starting EBGLIS, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about EBGLIS and visit ebglis.lily.com or call 1-800-LILIRX or 1-800-545-5979. This is Our American Stories.
Up next, a story about California wine, determined young entrepreneurs devoted to their art. and the most famous or infamous wine tasting of all time, depending on what side of the Atlantic you're on. Here's our own Monty Montgomery with the story. You'll also be hearing from wine historian Kevin Ferguson and others in the business. Take it away, Monty.
102, take one. Ah, the French champagne. has always been celebrated for its excellence. There is a California champagne by Paul Masson. inspired by that same French excellence.
When you think of wine naturally, you think of France, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, which is a term protected by international law. Bubbly maidens say Michigan or New York can never legally be called champagne, at least within the borders of the EU. And that's because the French take their wine seriously. very seriously. It's the best in the world after all.
Why buy, let alone think of, wine from America? In 1976, the New World did not exist in France. Um Not a choice. At least That's what was thought until one slow Monday in 1976. Here's Kevin Ferguson.
Two California wines. did the unthinkable. Nine judges, nine French judges. Blindly picked two California wines over French elite wines. It sent shockwaves through the industry.
But before we talk about 1976. The speakeasy era began and ended with illegal booze. What the law denied was supplied by rum runners and bootleggers. We've got to talk about 1920. California wine industry peaked in 1910.
where there are a thousand wineries. About 400 of those wineries went out of business as Prohibition was looming. Half of those went out of business. The ones that survived mostly survived as a result of making sacramental wine, wine for the church. pretty much bootlegging.
Prohibition law didn't stop you from drinking wine. It prevented you from making wine. My name means winemaker's son, by the way, Vignar Ski. is from a winemaker. A vintner.
but I have not of agricultural background. Um You can go into a grocery store and you'd see a rack of grapes for sale and they would have like instructions on how to make your own homemade wine. My father during Prohibition did make wine. In my first experience of wine, was sound. I heard Bubbling.
of the fermentation in a barrel in which he was making wine. The California wine industry was still getting repaired from Prohibition. It had been 40 years. You know, we knew the history, the long history of Napoleon making great wines pre-Prohibition, and we thought we could get there again. We were fairly ambitious and fairly confident, actually.
And young. There is a story. Yeah. Only old vines. make great wines.
The vineyard was three years old. We had just constructed the winery. I had young colleagues. Everything about the winery, everything about the bin was young. And I was old.
I had completed 10 years of apprenticeship. I was 35. And I was determined. I would put all that to good use. I wasn't going to make any mistakes.
We knew we had really great grapes, and if we didn't screw it up, it'd be pretty good stuff. I set my sights high. on making a beautiful wine. I didn't think of French wines. It wasn't to duplicate, it wasn't to go beyond.
It was to make the most beautiful wine I could. from those grapes from that place. Uh It is said that Americans are hard to set limits. They tend to try the best they can. in the places they are.
And that was my effort. I was part of that. Do the best you can. Do it better than you can. Don't set limits, artificial limits.
If I had said artificial limits, I would have Said French wines are undoubtedly the best in the world. But there were A number of French astronomers at that tasting. And they discovered that the sun does not only go around France. Overnight, it changed the reputation of California wines. It's pretty remarkable, but if you think about it now There's about 4,800 wineries in California.
So the Judgment of Paris was a landmark event that transformed the wine industry. It was run by a British wine merchant in Paris. I bought a wine shop in the Madeleine in 1971. A guy named Steven Spurrier. And immediately acquired an Anglo-Saxon plante.
And I used to open bottles for them in the evenings. He was in his late 20s. He had just moved from England where he had worked in the wine trade for two years. How he actually took over this wine shop is actually interesting. He's walking down the street one day with a British friend of his, and they walked past this wine shop.
He said to his friend that this is the kind of wine shop I'd like to own someday.
So they walk into the wine shop, and the owner had lost her husband. It was her husband's store. And she bumps into him and says, Can I sell you something? And the friend of his said, Yeah, you could sell my friend your wine shop. And she kind of laughed at him and said, You know, this is my husband's pride and joy.
I don't think an Englishman can hold a candle to my husband. running this store. And Steven Spurrier said, Well, I'll strike a deal with you. I'll work for you for six months. for free.
And if you're satisfied, you can sell me your shop. He bought the shop. Because we were in the middle of Paris and we spoke English, we had through 73, 74, and 75 visits from California winemakers who told us how good they were. And Patricia Garager, an American girl whose family came over, she joined me as director of La Académie Divine in 1973. And every July 4th, she tried to give.
Tastings of American wine.
Well, that was difficult because there weren't any in Paris.
So when it became very plain to us that there was really something going on, From California, Patricia said, We must do something about this. I said, Of course we must.
So she took her vacation, went to Napa, really pre-selected the wine. When Patricia Gallagher came to taste your wine, She must have thought it was wonderful. Did you know it was I knew it was the best I could, and I had a pretty good idea that it was beautiful. Only the French could teach me. How beautiful it was.
Okay. I didn't think they would be exceeded in any testing. It was the first Cabernet made at this winery. And I said, you know, we must have a peg to hang all this on because we'd never given a tasting of California before, no wines before.
So she said the peg will be the celebration of the bicentennial of the War of Independence. And I said that's not something we Brits normally celebrate, but I'll go along with it. We then set a date, May 24th, rented a wonderful space at the Intercontinental Hotel, and we had nine judges from the top echelons in France. And then, having bought two bottles of each, had 24 bottles on my hands. And it wasn't supposed to be a blind tasting.
We were just proposing putting the wines to these nine judges just to show what was going on. We wanted to have visibility of the California wines. And it occurred to me. That with one exception, Ober de Villain, who owned the Romede Conti, still does, who is married to a girl from San Francisco, only Ober would have ever tasted California wine before. The rest of them, I thought the risk was they know that California was on the west coast somewhere north of Mexico and they would think that it was a southern country and they'd judge it like the south of Spain or the south of Italy.
So when all the tasks turned up, I said, and I decided to change the rules and if you don't agree I'll change them back. Put a problem, they said. And the rest is history. And you've been listening to our own Monty Montgomery and Kevin Ferguson, a Bay Area wine historian, and a bevy of other voices telling the story, well, telling the story of the judgment of Paris. When we come back, more of the story.
Here on our American stories. The countdown is on for the 2026 NFL Draft presented by Bud Light. Catch all seven rounds three days live from Pittsburgh, April 23rd through 25th. Watch every pick live on NFL Network, ESPN, and ABC. NFL Network is also streaming with NFL Plus.
It all starts Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern. Visit NFL.com slash draft for more information. Subscription required for NFL Plus. Visit plus.nfL.com for terms.
Eczema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with Epglis. a once-monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial four-month or longer dosing phase, about four in ten people taking EBGLIS achieved it-relate and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing. EBGLIS, LibricizumAP LBKZ, a 250 milligram per 2 milliliter injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema, also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies.
EBGLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to EBGLIS. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems.
You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EBGLIS. Before starting EBGLIS, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about EBGLIS and visit ebglis.lilly.com or call 1-800-LILIRX or 1-800-545-5979. We've been duped, hoodwinked, conned for 50 years. The lawn care industry sold us toxins in a bag and made our yards more toxic than a bad relationship.
Sunday helps you ditch the chemicals and feed your lawn the good stuff.
Soybean proteins, iron, seaweed, molasses, ingredients that get your soil giggling like an overserved mom at the block party. Sunday uses clean ingredients in real science for thicker, greener grass. Order today and get your custom Sunday yard plan for the season ahead. Sunday for a smarter, healthier yard. GetSunday.com.
This is Julian Edelman from Games with Names. You know, I always got something going on. Lifting, chasing my kid. Or heading on a family road trip where I'm somehow both the snack guy. And the DJ.
But no matter what's going on in my schedule, one thing never changes. I make sure I stay hydrated. That's where Liquid IV shows up clutch. We've said it before. It's the key.
to faster hydration. You gotta have a liquid IV on you. Jim bag. Glove box. The pantry you swear is organized.
Toss one in, just a stick and 16 ounces of water hydrates you faster than water alone. Boom. Efficiency. It's powered by Liquid IV Hydroscience.
Sounds like a playbook term, but it's an optimized ratio of electrolytes, vitamins, and clinically tested nutrients, turning water into a game changer. Worried it tastes like science? Don't. Liquid IV hydration multiplier flavors are delicious. Lemon lime, popsicle firecracker, and cotton candy, plus sugar-free favorites like white peach and rainbow sherbet.
That's a win. Tear, pour, enjoy. Even I can handle that. Go to liquidiv.com and use the promo code NutHouse for 20% off your first purchase. Hi.
And we continue with our American stories and the story of the Judgment of Paris, the most important wine tasting of all time. When we last left off, a British wine merchant named Stephen Spurrier Had come up with the idea to hold a blind taste test with French and American wines for America's bicentennial, but the concept didn't get much traction in the media. Here again is Kevin Ferguson. He had reached out to all the French media. All of them universally rejected the story idea, thinking, look, if France is going to win, then there's no story.
But he also pitched it to George Tabor, who was the European correspondent for Time magazine, who was also skeptical. And he said, well, if it's a slow day in the office, I'll come. It was a slow day. It was a Monday. Time magazine went to print on Friday, so.
Monday was the slowest news day, so if nothing came out of the judgment of Paris or the blind tasting, then it wasn't a big loss to him. I think there was another reason that it probably showed up, which was that I'm a native Californian. I was not a wine expert by any means. And so when Stephen's contests or the blind tasting happened. Halfway through the white wine tasting, he started to develop an idea that there might be a story developing here.
As soon as I walked in, I was given probably by Patricia. because I hardly knew Stephen at that point. A list of the wines. The the judges didn't have any idea the tasting order, but I had the tasting order. And the other thing that was very lucky was that I was the only journalist, because I think if there had been 10 journalists, 50 journalists, Stephen probably would have shoved us all into a corner and said, we'll tell you the results when it's all over.
Because I was the only one, I had the freedom to roam around the room. And the other very important was that I was fluent in French. And many of the judges spoke a lot as they were tasting.
So he knew what they were talking about and tasting. And it was about halfway through the white wine part of the competition. That one of the judges held up a glass of wine. And he swirled it around. And he tasted it, and then he...
held it up again and he said, ah, back to France. And I looked at my scorecard. And he had just tasted Fremark Abbey Chardonnay. Fremark Abbey from Napa Valley. Hey, that's not bad for kids from the sticks.
Maybe I'm going to have a story here after all. Edith Kahn, who was one of the judges and she was the editor of the Revue de Vin de France, the same day, she realized right away what was going to happen. And she asked for her notes back. And I said, sorry Madam Khan, they're not your notes, they're now my notes. Two weeks later, she wrote an article in the Revere de France France saying that tasting had been rigged and I had spat in the face of France and all that kind of stuff.
The French were very upset. The French wine community often said that they were robbed. They questioned the way that Steven Spurrier ran the tasting. Steven Spurrier used the wrong, didn't use the best wines, didn't pick the best vintages. I was physically thrown out of the Ramonet cellars.
I'd called Mr. Ramonet, Monsieur Ramonet, because I had both the Batin Marache 72 and 73. in my shop. And Pierre Ramonet, who's known as Le Père Ramonet, had already been on the front cover of Go Emio and said that God had put him on earth to make great wine.
So I called Ramonet and I said, I want to put one of your wines into a tasting, and I've got the 72 and the 73. Which do you recommend? He said, young man, all my wines are brilliant.
So I put in the 73 just to match the 73s from California, and it wasn't brilliant.
So anyway, I was physically thrown out of the Ramine cellars. It was a day that I remember my boss was Mike Gergen. He's very, very Croatian. We're just sitting there, you know, filling barrels regular day, and he's got the telegram from my dad, and he says, you know, not bad for kids from the sticks. You know, great news, Paris, we won.
And you can go to the wine. We still have the document there, but he's like dancing around. Vivon, Vivon. He's like doing the Croatian jig. I was in Chicago.
The home of my parents. Barbara called me. And she said there was a tasting in Paris, do you remember? I don't exactly remember, she said, but we won. And I said, that's nice.
Mm-hmm. We were just starting out. It's nice to win a tasting. When you grow up as an American, you think about meritocracy as everything, and if you try hard enough, if you work hard enough, and you're diligent, you put your nose to the grindstone, you can make these great rewards, and you can actually accomplish great things with, you know, just by hard work. And yeah, clearly when we saw that meritocracy was crushing aristocracy, it was a brilliant time for all of us at that age.
I was very happy. I remember I was dancing and I couldn't believe it, but suddenly scored more points than any out of 20 white or red ones. 132 points. Actually the Chardonnay was a sidetrack for us. We've been in Red Wine House since we started.
Our 100 acres at the estate is all Cabernet.
So Chardonnay is still a little sideline for us. It's a novel little experiment that worked out. And first ne and next to main points was Mr. Vinarski, Caberne Sovion. I didn't know who the judges were.
I didn't know what the other wines were. I didn't know anything about it. I remember Stephen coming to get the wine, but he didn't tell me that it was going to be tasted. It was going to be a beauty contest. under twenty seconds, six and a half points.
And then came the French. Should Two Napa Valley wines scored the best points. Most important.
So it's 10 years of apprenticeship. seemed to have turned out all right. Yeah. You know, we got the meritocracy and then the American standard for quality. Why we won was because our wine was a higher quality.
You know, that day we had the right wine in the right place. We could compete on the level of playing field. We were judged on pure quality. But I think when the center and the focus of American winemaking becomes on quality and competitiveness, then that set a track record that really is true to today where the leadership of American wines and quality and integrity and honesty. Are dominated.
So, as we grew up in that, we became a very competitive league, and you had to be really good at your job, and you had to, again, really work hard. You know, it's a lot like baseball. The natural talent is enough, you also have to have discipline and training and good coaching. Putting a positive spin on it, Herbert de Villain. who was given a really bad time in Burgundy when he he went back.
announced a few years later that it was a welcome kick in the pants for France. Ah, and coup d'a derière.
Well, that's what happened. It was a victory for Napa. For California And for all of North America, and in fact, around the world, people grew. This inspiration from this event, it was so tremendous. I interviewed several winemakers, the owners of several wineries in the New York area.
I said, you know, you remember there's this Paris tasting. What happened after that? They all were saying, you will not believe it. The day after that story came out, story came out on a Monday, the next day, or that day, people were come running into the store with a copy of Time magazine and say, Do you have these wines? Do you have these wines?
And most of them didn't have the wines, but then they turned around and started buying California wines. One of the greatest events in Wayne history. And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Monty Montgomery. And a special thanks to Kevin Ferguson. He's a Bay Area wine historian.
And a special thanks to the Smithsonian for keeping this audio alive. And what a story! The meritocracy of the United States, that Napovalling innovation. Coming in direct contact with the aristocrats of winemaking, the aristocracy of winemaking, and that is, of course, the French. The story of the Judgment of Paris, the most important wine tasting of all time, here on our American stories.
The countdown is on for the 2026 NFL Draft presented by Bud Light. Catch all seven rounds three days live from Pittsburgh, April 23rd through 25th. Watch every pick live on NFL Network, ESPN, and ABC. NFL Network is also streaming with NFL Plus. It all starts Thursday at 8 p.m.
Eastern. Visit NFL.com slash draft for more information. Subscription required for NFL Plus. Visit plus.nfL.com for terms. Get ready for the wildest sight your lawn has ever seen.
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. This spring, unleash soil science like never before. Witness your custom lawn plan and the transformation to a soft green paradise.
Sorry, just trying to get your attention. Sunday is a boringly simple way to get a green, healthy yard. No harsh stuff, no big trucks, no chaos. Order today and get your custom Sunday yard plan for the season ahead. Sunday, smarter lawn care for less.
GetSunday.com. Eczema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with Epglisp. a once-monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial four-month or longer dosing phase, about four in ten people taking EBGLIS achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing.
EBGLIS, Labrikizumap LBKZ, a 250 milligram per 2 milliliter injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema, also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. EBGLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to EBGLIS. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur.
Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EBGLIS. Before starting EBGLIS, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about EBGLIS and visit ebglis.lily.com or call 1-800-LILIRX or 1-800-545-5979. Tired of spills and stains on your sofa?
Wash away your worries with Anibay. Anibay is the only designer sofa that's machine-washable inside. And out, starting at just $699. Bus Annabey sofas are pet-friendly, stain-resistant, and feature changeable slip covers and modular pieces. Get up to 60% off site-wide with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Visit washable sofas.com to get yours now. That's washable sofas.com. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.
Mm-hmm.
