Women gather to explore life’s finer pleasures

By Sarah Williams
The Brownsville Herald

February 19, 2006 — Nearly a year ago, a group of five friends stopped at a bed and breakfast in the Texas wine country on their way home from a trip to Arkansas. After touring a winery, shopping, receiving spa treatments and drinking wine, they went home to Brownsville feeling refreshed and inspired.

“We said we have to do this again, we learned so much,” said Brownsville City Commissioner Sally Arroyo. “That’s when we decided on meeting and learning about something, so we decided to learn about wine.”

The five women began meeting in each other’s homes for wine tasting parties. After some deliberation, they agreed to call themselves Divas Damas.

“The idea was to learn about the wine, make a presentation, and also to learn what kind of food is served with it,” said Blanca Vela, former Brownsville mayor. “Each of us made notes about which ones we liked and which ones we didn’t.”

Paquita Chavez, of Peru, Adelina Barbosa, a pharmacist for Su Clinica, and Lupita Rivera, a Lopez supermarket employee, joined Arroyo and Vela for five meetings last year. They compared Cabernets and Merlots, pared Fume Blanc with a ham and apple arugula salad, sipped cognac and ate chocolate covered strawberries with champagne.

For each of the five meetings everyone invited one friend to join the group. The host provided the wine and food, as well as a presentation about the type of wine featured that evening.

By the time they had the fifth get-together, 25 new friends were made. To celebrate their newfound knowledge, Arroyo hosted a year-end party on Feb. 12 for all the women who attended the wine tasting parties.....for more of the story from the Brownsville Herald