Need help choosing Amador zins

Mark, thanks. I pretty much figured out Katie's style from the website, trouble now is getting the wines. The one internet seller I'd found a good supply of their wines at, Winerz in So Cal, despite what their website shows is out of the Clockspring and the Esola won't be released until June. I bought her Sauv Blanc for the pre-tasting session, but sadly may not be able to use any AFW zins in this tasting at all.

So far I have the Karly Warrior Fires, Sobon ReZerve, Ruhnquist Z, Scott Harvey OV and Gott Dillian, and the sixth spot that was going to be the AFW is open. That'll probably end up going to Easton or Montevina Deaver, whichever I find first. The other two pretasting wines are Karly and Gott SB's.

That sounds like a good, representative line up. I'd say get the AFW wines direct but last I knew, they'd stopped shipping to WA because of the new direct shipping laws here. They briefly had a distributor in WA a few years back but no more.

Good choices. 2004 was a difficult year. I agree with most of the comments made and the final ratings posted elsewhere.

Well I guess the wines were good--I wasn't able to attend--but the comment I've heard over and over is that all the wines were so good that it was hard to rate/rank them. The usual technique of easily picking out your first and last place wines, then putting one's energy into sorting out #'s 2 thru 5, wasn't possible.

Sure found it hard to find ratings/critical reviews of the wines when we went to put together our fact sheet. There would seem to be an opening for a Zinhound, if you will--someone who will make it their personal mission to become the area expert. Someone's missing an opportunity...interested?

Rod, not too often one mentions Amador Foothill here!! One of my fav wineries, they just released the `01 Syrah here in Canada.

[James Roscoe]

Is Jenise going to tell us how the evening went? I am interested in this area as well. My wife loves the zins of this appelation.

[Jenise]

James, I only got back from Denmark the night before and couldn't adjust to the time difference fast enough to attend the tasting, so I don't have any first-hand notes. I only know from others that all the wines were terrific and people had a real hard time picking out favorites--there were no losers. The Joel Gott "Dillian" took first place with the group, where a person whose palate is usually quite similar to mine picked the well-structured Karly as his favorite.

[James Roscoe]

I hope you had a great time in Denmark! I have to admit to being disappointed not to have your account of tasting these wines. They were an excellent group! Will anyone else post? I certainly understand why you didn't go!

[Jenise]

Sorry, James, but no, no one else will post. Heck, over Saturday/Sunday I spoke to six, no eight, eight people who were there, and not ONE of them could remember the name of their favorite wine. You don't think they actually took notes, do you?

[James Roscoe]

Sorry, James, but no, no one else will post. Heck, over Saturday/Sunday I spoke to six, no eight, eight people who were there, and not ONE of them could remember the name of their favorite wine. You don't think they actually took notes, do you?

Who am I to talk? I am the same way. What is the secret to taking notes at an event like that? (Other than having a pen and some paper.)

The Joel Gott "Dillian" took first place with the group,

Nice stuff! Now I need to try the Karly.

Here is the best article on the Scott Harvey Amador story.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/08/11/WIG34E4P0V1.DTL