Gas Station Revelation

One thing I've always been great at is being disappointed. In my teens it was my "super-strict" parents, in my early 20s it was the entire male species, and now...after befriending my parents and finding a man worthy of woman, I have mediocre wines with clever marketing tactics as a target for my nagging discontentment. Horray!

So imagine my surprise when I twist the top off my twelve dollar bottle of red wine, purchased from a gas station in Georgia, timidly pour myself a glass (expecting a subtle sadness to fill my mouth) and instead taste...what is it?...no, it can't be...near...perfection?!?

My impossibly lush fantasies of a simultaneously velvetty, spicy, jammy, and meaty purple juice, finally materialized in a plastic cup! Just when I thought I was destined to an eternity of deep, disturbing discontentment, my sanity is rescued by the suspiciously simple phrase "California Red Wine".

It's not very often that my palette encounters something as blog-worthy as this (and the date on my last post will confirm!) ...Frontier Red Lot No. 91, from Fess Parker Winery in Santa Maria, CA is a revelation. It's the kind of wine that you are afraid of being left alone with (especially in a sparse/ lonely/ cable TV-deprived hotel room). It's the kind of wine that a very cunning gentleman would bring on a first date. The kind of wine that, I dare say, would turn the frown upside down on even the most pleasantly pessimistic wine nerd. It can be done!

Syrah, Grenache, Petite Syrah, Mouvedre, Cinsault and Carignane make a luscious crew in Fess Parker's Frontier Red. My high-priced wine dealer friends will surely be enraged when they run across this superstar red for around $12. Blackberry jam, bbq smoke, purple silk, and a liquid smile...why are you still sitting there?! Go get some!