Sir Peter Michael brings 'Judgement of Paris' to West Berkshire

Wine expert Steven Spurrier visited the venue on Friday to launch the painting, which was commissioned by owner Sir Peter Michael as part of a £2m revamp of the celebrated hotel and restaurant.
It also emerged that Newbury entrepreneur and self-made multimillionaire Sir Peter is working on an expansion of his wine cellar, which could become one of the largest in the UK, holding 30,000 bottles.
The cellar will have a glass ceiling so that visitors walking through the hotel can peer down through the floor at the many valuable vintages contained within.
Sir Peter said that he had commissioned London-based artist Gary Myatt to create the artwork to celebrate an event that sent shockwaves through the wine world in the 1970s – the Judgement of Paris.
A modern spin on Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, The Last Supper, the painting shows the moment when a group of wine experts gathered at a competition held by Spurrier in Paris 1976, were horrified to discover that they had ranked Californian wines higher than French.
Sir Peter said: “I had been thinking for two years how I wanted to tell the story of the ‘Judgement of Paris’ and bring it to a wider audience. It is more widely known in the USA, but not so much over here, and as such an important moment in wine-tasting history I wanted to bring a new appreciation of it.
“It changed the future of the wine industry, which had been until then dominated by the French. This is part of making The Vineyard at Stockcross more accessible and open to people and encouraging an interest in wine.”
Work refurbishing the restaurant and hotel will carry on throughout the summer.
The story of the Judgment of Paris was made into a film in 2008, Bottle Shock, starring Oscar winner Alan Rickman in the role of Spurrier.
Mr Spurrier said that he was flattered by the painting, which accurately depicted the surprise and astonishment of what transpired at the event in Paris in 1976.