CALISTOGA – As grapes produce wine, history yields mythology. The latest evidence is "Bottle Shock," a movie set in the vineyards of Napa Valley, to start rolling into cinemas a week from today.

The title is a play on words. On one hand, it refers to an occasional brief shutting down of a wine's smell and flavor soon after it is bottled, a phenomenon exaggerated absurdly in the movie.

On the other, it springs from the results of a 1976 tasting in Paris when upstart Napa Valley wines outshone their French counterparts, shocking the world wine establishment and raising overnight the profile of California vineyards.

"Not bad for kids from the sticks," said Jim Barrett as he recalled the Paris tasting while strolling about the grounds of his Chateau Montelena outside Calistoga on Sunday afternoon.

He was repeating a line he's been saying since he got word of the results 32 years ago, when the Chateau Montelena 1973 chardonnay won the white-wine segment of the tasting.

While his line is in "Bottle Shock,") the movie has little to do with the drama and ramifications of the tasting itself. The film – which is scheduled to open in the Bay Area next Wednesday and at the Tower Theatre in Sacramento on Aug. 15 – was shot in Napa and Sonoma counties, even the Paris scenes. It is a photogenic vehicle about a father-and-son relationship, self-realization, determination and romance, with the tasting as setup.

The movie focuses almost exclusively on the Barretts, their Chateau Montelena just north of Calistoga and the chardonnay they made that so stunned judges in Paris.

"Bottle Shock" also is one more example of the stature the tasting has developed over the past 32 years. Two years ago, a 326-page book was published about the tasting, George Taber's "Judgment of Paris: California Vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine." A second movie based on the book is in the works.

And over the past year, the two Napa Valley families who produced the winning wines sold their wineries, both to parties involving historic and esteemed European estates.

A year ago, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars – where Warren Winiarski made the 1973 cabernet sauvignon that topped a field including similarly built wines from such noble Bordeaux chateaux as Mouton Rothschild and Haut-Brion – was sold to a joint venture involving Ste. Michelle Wine Estates in Washington state and Marchese Piero Antinori of Italy for $185 million.

Now, pending regulatory approval, Chateau Montelena, where winemaker Mike Grgich and Barrett produced the 1973 chardonnay to outscore such highly regarded Burgundians as Meursault Charmes and Bâtard-Montrachet, is selling to the French owners of the Bordeaux chateau Cos d'Estournel.

The Barretts aren't discussing the price, but Napa Valley investment banker Vic Motto, who helped broker the deal, says it's "much larger" than the reported $110 million.

Oh, how the story has grown

After three decades, the Paris tasting has taken on a mythology of its own. At the time, the French press ignored it. Only one reporter was on hand, George Taber, then a correspondent for Time magazine. He attended only because it was a slow news day and because the InterContinental Hotel where the tasting was staged was a short walk from his office.

Two weeks later, his four-paragraph article, under the headline "Judgement of Paris," was published in Time.

"That's nice," Winiarski remembers thinking when his wife, Barbara, relayed the news that his cabernet sauvignon had won the red-wine segment of the tasting. "My response was underwhelming. I didn't know the tasters, I didn't know the other wines.

"But over time the implications began to sink in, and the repercussions grew as people absorbed the significance of the tasting in its true light."

Ripples from the tasting began to swell as even the French press acknowledged the tasting was scrupulous and the results significant.

The tasting was blind, an approach virtually unheard of in Europe at that time. The French wines in the two rounds were seen as among the world's greatest. The nine judges were French and widely acknowledged as authoritative in wine matters.

Call The Bee's Mike Dunne at (916) 321-1143. Read his blog at www.sacbee.com/appetizers. Back columns: www.sacbee.com/dunne.