We had a lot of fun with this tasting because rather than just tasting six different wines against one another to see which we liked best, we were actually tasting differences between individual wines in different categories. We had a 1997 El Dorado which we were comparing to a 1996 Gran Reserva Rioja from the same approximate price range, two Tempranillos from the same vineyard and vintage made by two different wineries, a Napa Valley Cab to see how similar Cab is to Tempranillo, and then the Tempranillos represented 4 different regions of California just to see if we could taste AVA variation. As usual it didn't turn out the way most of us expected but was a great experience.

There was no clear favorite, although everyone had their own personal favorite, it was not the same from taster to taster. In fact, more than any tasting we have done to date, the variation of the profiles of the individual taster's favorite wine was drastic. Some preferred the Rioja, some the aged El Dorado County wine, some the Lodi, and some the Amador originated wine; however, we all agreed these were all very good wines with a wide variation of characteristics that really went to personal preference. We will try very hard in the write up to give you enough information on each wine to illustrate those differences.

The following grid is the composite results of the input of all of the tasters. These are all fairly easy wines to find for sale, but in California the vintage variation isn't as great as other places, so pick the next year if that is all you can find and see if you agree with our results.

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