The Judgement Of Singapore Shows Napa Cabernet Pulling Ahead Half A Century After Legendary Judgement of Paris, With Burgundy's Chardonnay Sweeping Top Honours

Fifty years after the seminal Judgment of Paris, a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon outranked premier Bordeaux estates at the Judgment of Singapore, a landmark blind tasting celebrating the historical anniversary.

Vine Hill Ranch VHR Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 from Oakville took first place in the red wine category, followed by Château Ducru-Beaucaillou 2019 and Château Margaux 2019.

Burgundy secured all five top Chardonnay places, helmed by Bonneau du Martray Corton Charlemagne Grand Cru 2019.

The results were announced on 4 October at Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) to conclude Singapore Wine Week 2026. Presented by Impeccable APAC and Park90 in partnership with RWS, the Judgment of Singapore served as the week’s flagship event.

The blind tasting convened 15 international judges across 10 countries, co-led by Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW and Ronan Sayburn MS.

Held on 2 October, the panel evaluated 26 wines, with 24 advancing to the final rankings after two bottles were discarded for being out of condition.

The two wines in question are the Aubert Chardonnay 2019 and Tenuta San Guido Sassicaia 2020, which were excluded from the final results after the organisers and co-lead moderators determined that the bottles tasted were out of condition, likely heat-affected, which would not have given a fair reflection of either wine.

Served strictly blind without producer, region, or vintage disclosure, the wines were scored using a 100-point scale. The wines were served blind, with producers, regions and vintages concealed from the judges.

Judges evaluated each entry across five criteria: balance, intensity, complexity, ageing potential, and singularity. Up to 20 points are awarded per parameter.

The Top 5 Chardonnay

The Top 5 Cabernet Sauvignon

The final scores combine the judges’ average overall quality score out of 100 (75% weighting) with the wine’s place in the judges’ combined ranking (25% weighting).

Designed as an analytical study rather than a pure competition, the Judgment of Singapore required judges to evaluate and rank the wines while attempting to identify each entry's provenance as Old World or New World.

Determining provenance proved surprisingly challenging for the panel, with judges correctly identifying a wine's origin only 64% of the time across all entries—yielding a 69% accuracy rate for Cabernet Sauvignon and 58% for Chardonnay.

Demonstrating the blur between regional styles, six of the 15 judges misidentified the winning Cabernet, the Californian Vine Hill Ranch VHR 2019, as a Bordeaux. Conversely, 10 judges mistook the French Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet Les Combettes 2019 for a New World Chardonnay.

On the other hand, all 15 judges correctly classified Quilceda Creek Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 as New World, while 12 correctly classified Château Margaux 2019 as Old World.

Burgundy dominated the white category by sweeping the top five positions, leaving Western Australia’s Cloudburst Margaret River Chardonnay 2019 as the highest-ranked New World entry just outside the lead group.

In contrast, the top five Cabernet Sauvignons were divided between Napa Valley with two entries and Bordeaux with three.