Attention CS Winos

[AAlmeter]

My girlfriend got back from studying abroad in France and for her birthday, part of her gift is a wine rack I made along with some bottles of wine. Problem is that I know beer, and I know cigars...and thats it. All I know is that she said she liked the red french wines. Any suggestions??? or should I just give her a PSD4 and tell her to learn to enjoy it?

[galaga]

Sounds to me like you need to spend some time and get yourself a good cork screw and start sampling the different reds you can find. They go great with pasta and barbeque and cigars. They just have funny names like merlot, cabernet and zinfandel. You can get some nice wines for under $6-$7 a bottle. You'll just have to start sharing vices

[OpusEx]

I have dabbled in the wine market for a while now and have a nice bonus in this area, as a very good friend of mine and his wife are collectors (so I either get to taste (from their cellar) or hear all of their reviews of wines I might consider buying prior to purchasing). I try to stay in the $25-50/bottle (retail), as I find that there are a lot of wines there, which can be opened now and will be very nice and also put away and will be fantastic, if given the correct amount of bottle aging time. Here is a list of 3 I have personally tried recently and really liked (should say that I really prefer Cabernet over all reds, but the Merlot listed below is a big bodied Merlot):

Sebastiani Merlot $12.00/appx.
Raymond Reserve Cabernet $30.00/appx.
De Trafford Estates Cabernet $30.00/appx.

[c2000]

Livingston Cellers Merlot 4.99 a jar and not too bad...Don't drink the more expensive stuff but doubt there is a hugh differance but as ususal I could be wrong...

Jerry in Minnesota.

[Enyafan]

try looking at www.winespectator.com they are not like cA, the reviews are pretty much 100 percent from the wines i have tasted and compared with them. i do like washington reds and whites. i prefer merlots but columbia crest makes some nice cabs from well priced to decently priced.