RON SWARNER: ENOTECA WINE BAR >>>

"Wine bar" has always seemed like a contradiction in terms to me. Don't get me wrong, I love wine and drink it avidly. It's just that putting the word "wine" before "bar," threatens to undermine the whole vivid set of expectations I have for bars. If I may quote from It's a Wonderful Life, when Nick the bartender verbally slaps George Bailey in his alternate universe: "We serve hard drinks in here for men who want to get drunk fast, and we don't need any characters like you hanging around." THAT's a bar.

Having said that, I adore Enoteca wine bar. It’s an ideal place to linger with old friends, which is exactly what I did recently.

Bill Bonnie opened this wine-and-cheese treasure in January 2006, next to his Tacoma Wine Merchants store. Enoteca is a tiny, intimate joint. Be careful walking into this long, narrow space â€" the door barely misses the best table in the house.  Low lighting has the effect of making the snug room feel even smaller.

Planning to share a bottle and a cheese plate, we instead end up drinking, tasting and laughing for three hours. We went through four rounds of the Italian Taleggio cheese at $14 a pop. Yum.

As we are receiving excellent personal service at Enoteca, we end up spending much time discussing the qualities of the wine: odd how they can seem so distinct when articulated by an expert. I decide that wine lists need to employ more literate wine descriptors. I compose this for our favorite wine of the night â€" the Canyon Edge Winery Cabernet 2005: "This naughty puppy grabs your dung crusted boots out of the mud room and drags them across the backyard and into cranky Farmer Ted’s barn. By the time you get them back, they're stuffed full of flowers and vanilla, and as you inhale, you can't help but reflect, 'Gee, it’s great living in the country.'" Maybe it's the wine talking, but to me, that's truth in advertising.

Perhaps, however, idiosyncratic taste buds will resist all attempts our brains make to predict what we will like. This point is driven home when we stop by a true bar, Doyle’s Public House, where fellow Enoteca imbiber and trumpeter Lance Buller orders a post-wine dram of scotch, I declare after sipping: "It's like getting a rock thrown at your head."

[Enoteca, 21 N. Tacoma Ave., Tacoma, 253.779.8258]

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