Fields Family Wines, Lodi (California) Tempranillo 2010

This is one of the most compelling examples of this great grape that I’ve ever tasted from the USA, showing dark cherry fruit with real structure and fine underlying acidity. Also impressive and perhaps even more important is the fact that it isn’t overloaded with excessive American oak (as if to mimic a certain stereotypically Spanish style of wine, as is often done with Tempranillo made in the New World). This is a wine its own thing — not aping something else from somewhere else, and it is doing its thing very, very well. Platinum Award winner at the 2013 San Diego International Wine Competition.