The Brown Paper Bag

(Brief flashback) Those who know me well, also know that my greatest fear in life is to become a bag lady. This originated during my years in San Francisco, where more than a good fourth of the homeless population were women, pushing shopping carts piled high with paper bags filled with their belongings - many of them protectively cradling their Thunderbird, wrapped in a brown paper bag. That fear has, over the last 20 years, morphed into a phobia.

(Fast forward to yesterday) So imagine my brief horror as we sat down at our weekly wine-tasting event, to a counter full of bottles, each one wrapped in a brown paper bag! I could feel the blood draining from my face, pooling in my abdomen. Nick, our facilitator, quizzically glanced my way; Kim, my partner-in-wine, asked, "What's wrong with you?!?" "Nothing. Bit of vertigo," I mumbled. (After all, we had just returned from a raucously surreal two days in Denver ... I sooo used that as an excuse)

Silly me. The folks at Powers Liquor Mart had secretly arranged a fun afternoon, which featured a blind tasting of little known inexpensive wines with big, complex personalities! The intent was to create very little expectation (through the use of brown paper bag wrappers), then develop an appreciation through our three senses of enological distinction: vision, smell and taste.  Like boot camp - break us down and build us up, but with confident surprise.  It was fun, it was an adventure, and it was effective!

Nick very generously half-filled our glasses, to which I thought, "great. nice way to get rid of a couple bottles of 'gasoline'!" Hmmm, pretty straw color ... an explosion of pears and sweet flowers in my nose ... followed by a smooth, airy and balanced sensation of lightly sweet fruit over my tongue. No doubt, this must be a late-harvest Riesling, very German in its character. Pairing this wine with small bites of the myriad types of food we all brought: hummus, cheeses, chocolate almonds ... yes, even roasted chile peppers ... introduced its versatility. Superb!

The awaited unveiling brought gasps of astonishment mixed with exclamations of pleasure (and for me a small sense of relief), as we discovered one of the gems from Pacific Rim Winemakers: not a late-harvest, but a Dry Riesling! Bottled in Santa Cruz, CA, this is a beautiful wine, 20% Mosel Riesling blended with 80% Riesling from Washington's Columbia Valley - two regions best known for this varietal.

My own surprise came from the fact that several months ago, I had picked up another bottle of Riesling from this winemaker, and had recently opened it to make a lovely sauté base for some prawns and scallops. The bouquet emanating from that bottle, as well as the beautiful art on the rear of the bottle's label, prompted me already then to do a little online research on Pacific Rim Winemakers.

This is a lovely wine; a happy discovery; makes a comfortable 'porch-pounder' as well as a complement to any meal; and, at $7.50, it will become my next case lot - but maybe without the brown paper bags!