Good red wine suggestions?

[TENGRAM]

Anything with a majority of grenache (or garnacha, depending on whether it's French or Spanish). I like the Parrallele 45 Cotes du Rhone and the Bodegas Atteca.

edit: for presentation go with the Parrallele 45 since it is a blend of grenache and syrah. Grenache by itself is usually pretty light colored for a red.

The grenache/garnacha grape results in a mildly sweet, easy to drink wine with a relatively high alcohol content since it naturally produces more sugar during growth than other grapes.

[ram57ta]

Colt 45.

[Randy]

Appreciate the help. Which red wines are not "dry"?

[347Mike]

Appreciate the help. Which red wines are not "dry"?

None, they're all wet, duh.

[Juiced4v]

White Z...

[BajaBob]

HEB is great for wine IMO, they publish any ratings the wine has received across the country in various magazines and festivals. Typically, a 90+ (out of 100) is going to run you at least 30 bucks a bottle, but typically they will have one or two 90+ rated bottle for sale at about $6-$10. This past year my wife and I have really liked some of the stuff we have just picked off the shelf (going by the ratings).

Also, grocery store prices are typically better than specialty liquor stores in my personal experience.

[Kenny_Stang]

Fancis Coppola Pinot Noir is very good and reasonably priced, I know they carry it at Kroger's and HEB

[Randy]

Fancis Coppola Pinot Noir is very good and reasonably priced, I know they carry it at Kroger's and HEB

I'm wanting to keep it at around 30-50 dollars for the bottle and the wife wants a red wine that isnt "dry". I' just wanting to impress the women and not show up with some junky wine. lol

[Kenny_Stang]

I think the Coppola Pinot Noir is usually about $20 and my girl loves it.

[Strychnine]

I'm wanting to keep it at around 30-50 dollars for the bottle and the wife wants a red wine that isnt "dry". I' just wanting to impress the women and not show up with some junky wine. lol

Expectation of quality outweighs perception and the actual experience.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=7A81E74F-E554-39DF-62E0C6F540A3CDF8

Price Can Make Wine Taste Better

Study subjects rated the same wine as tasting better when they were told it was more expensive. And their brains reacted differently to it when they thought it was pricier


You’d think we enjoy something based on its intrinsic qualities. Food should taste good because we its molecules tickle our tongues. But it’s much more complicated than that.

For example, one study has shown that knowing the ingredients and name brand of a beer can increase the drinker’s pleasure. What’s going on in our brains that allows that to happen?

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology recently investigated our neural response to these non-intrinsic stimuli. Twenty subjects tasted what they thought were five different wines. They were given the price for each. But in reality, there were only three wines. Two were offered twice, once at an alleged low price and once at a much higher price. And the subjects consistently said they enjoyed what they thought were expensive wines more.

A functional MRI showed that there was no change in activity in the taste centers of the brain when the subjects drank what they thought were costlier wines. But the MRI also revealed increased activity in the brain’s pleasure centers. So somehow our brains combine both the actual taste and what we expect about the taste—in this case that it’ll be better because it’s pricier. In vivo veritas!

Long story short: Get a $15-20 bottle and put a $50 price tag on it. You'll be the smart hero.

[billybob81]

My girl drinks Menage a Trois red wine. I am pretty sure it is a blend. I don't really care for reds that much, but that one is actually pretty good. I think it is only around $10-12/bottle as well.

[Randy]

Expectation of quality outweighs perception and the actual experience.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=7A81E74F-E554-39DF-62E0C6F540A3CDF8

Long story short: Get a $15-20 bottle and put a $50 price tag on it. You'll be the smart hero.

lol awesome! If it's cheaper and good by all means I'll go for it.

[ScottJ]

Anything from Chateau Lafite-Rothschild would be an excellent choice, on any table.

[TENGRAM]

Thunderbird.

[Cobra86]

Silver Oak cab is great but lots of $$$. Try a nice bottle of J Lohr Cab. Liquor store about $16, Costco about $13. All cabs will be more dry than Merlot.