Bargain Wine of the Week: 2010 Pacific Rim Riesling

If you're in a quandary about wine for Thanksgiving dinner, here's a last minute tip that'll get you by with the dozen or so people gathered around your turkey on Thanksgiving.

Pacific Rim winery in Washington state is making superb Rieslings. If you think that Rieslings are too sweet for serious wine drinkers, here's the catch: Pacific Rim makes four 2010 Rieslings varying from dry to sweet and only one of them is too sweet for our palates.

There are two more notes about these wines that are worthy of mention. The first is that the three we like all scored 90 or 91 on Wine Enthusiast ratings. These are seriously good wines, no matter how sophisticated your mouth.

The second is that at our local liquor store, they range in price from $9.99 to $12.99. That's a tremendous bargain for three such high rated varietals from the same winery.

The three we like are Pacific Rim 2010 Dry Riesling, rated 90 points by Wine Enthusiast magazine. It's got only 1% residual sugar.

The next is Pacific Rim 2010 Riesling, which is an medium-dry wine that your sweet-wine friends will enjoy. It garnered a 90 from Wine Enthusiast. It's got a colorful label that says only "Riesling," without characterizing its level of dryness.

The third is Pacific Rim 2010 Organic Riesling, which is also medium dry and we find it the best of the three — as did the Wine Enthusiast folks who gave it a 91 rating. Look for the totally white label and the word "Organic" at the bottom. This bottle is three bucks more at $12.99, but well worth it.

Buy one of each and see which one is the favorite at your holiday meal.