Red Wine

2007 Evil Cabernet Sauvignon From: Southeast Australia Price: $12 Serve with: Red meat, pasta This medium-bodied, nonvintage red wine is a blend of seven red-wine varietals - from the well-known cabernet sauvignon to the less-well-known carignane. (Its white counterpart is a comparably charming and identically priced seven-grape melange.) The red wine is well-balanced, fruity, ready to drink now - with flavors of blackberry, black pepper, cherry, vanilla and smoked meat. It finishes with good acidity and finds a good middle ground between simplicity and snootiness.

From: California Price: $9 Serve with: Hamburgers, pizza, simple stuff This red wine from the budget Rosso & Bianco (red and white) line from the winery founded by director Francis Ford Coppola is simply a good value. Billed as "a wine for everyday life," it lives up to that promise. It's not complex or elegant, but drinking a wine like this every day would not be a bad life to live. It's simple, fruity, medium- to full-bodied and offers winning black cherry and herbal flavors.

Word that red wine is good for you has been around ever since 60 Minutes famously aired a report on "The French Paradox" in 1991. The CBS television newsmagazine examined the question: How could the French eat all that fatty, egg- and cream-rich food and not suffer the kind of heart disease we Americans do? Regular consumption of red wine was part of the answer, the show declared. Red wine sales shot up dramatically. Ever since, scientific studies have emerged linking consumption of red wine with good health and aging.

"Men are like wine - some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age. " - Pope John Paul XXIII Nelson Carey, the genial publican at Belvedere Square's Grand Cru wine bar, is naturally filled with interesting and offbeat wine, beer and booze trivia, which on occasion he dispenses to interested listeners. The other day, while talking to several regulars about Pope Francis, he uncorked the fact that Chateauneuf-du-Pape, the great, robust red from France's Rhone Valley region, has direct papal ties.

September meals still hold summer's warmth. Lighter dishes in the form of fish and shellfish continue to find their way onto the table, yet nights are cool and beg for red wine.  Red wine with fish? It can be done, and successfully too. It just takes knowing your elements and how to combine them, alchemy fashion. Tannins in red wine often react with fish oil to produce a bitter, metallic, copper penny taste on the palate. The fish ends up tasting quite fishy and the wine turns into liquid aluminum foil.

This skillfully crafted blend of eight red grape varieties — most of the heavy hitters of the Rhone plus cabernet, sangiovese and zinfandel — provides great value. It's a medium- to full-bodied wine with the appealing flavors of wild berries, blueberry and chocolate. Complex? Nah. But very appealing and easy to drink. From: California Price: $10 Serve with: Hamburgers, pasta, pizza

Honest, palatable red wines for $5 are not common these days. This Portuguese wine will never excite the upper crust, but it's a fine summer red wine for washing down burgers by the RTC barbecue grill. Don't take it too seroiusly and it will reward you.

Red wine surrendered a clue to its health benefits in a study suggesting Madiran, a traditional French wine, may be brimming with one of the more valuable ingredients for protecting the heart. Scientists found the most potent form of polyphenols, which help reduce the risk of artery damage, in Madiran, and lesser amounts in other wines from southwestern France and Italy's Sardinian province of Nuoro. People in those regions also tend to live longer than those in surrounding areas, according to the study, in yesterday's issue of the journal Nature.

There's a racy, wild-berry nuance to this wine that lifts it out of the ranks of the ordinary. An imaginative blend of merlot, sangiovese, zinfandel and grenache, it delivers vibrant flavors of black cherry and spices. It's a medium- to full-bodied wine that is well-suited for immediate consumption. SERVE WITH // grilled steak or lamb, pasta or pizza

A blend of cabernet sauvignon and syrah, this California red wine is a hearty mouthful with good balance and concentration. It displays intense flavors of black cherry, blackberry, smoked meat, black pepper and earth. While accessible now, it should age well for five or six years - with no fear of cork contamination because it comes with a screw cap. The alcohol level is a heady 14.5 percent, but it hardly shows on the palate. Serve with beef stew, lamb, lasagna. Michael Dresser EVENTS Summer patio parties on the pier -- McCormick & Schmick's, 711 Eastern Ave., features live music and food and drink specials from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. tomorrow.

For weeks, my inbox, Twitter timeline and ears have burned. Readers and colleagues can't stop talking about WC Harlan, a new bar in Remington. The praise has been gushing and unanimous. To them, WC Harlan is a wonder. But there was something else: The bar's owners - Matt Pierce of the local band Big in Japan and writer Lane Harlan - are not interested in publicity and would prefer we not list its address. During a time when bars hire public relations teams to generate buzz via social media and other outlets, WC Harlan would rather find success through solid execution and word-of-mouth marketing.

From: Barossa Valley, Australia Price: $21 Serve with: Grilled meat, beef stew, lasagna This is a red wine whose flavors truly convey an image of the vines: squat, weathered old bushes with small yields of fat, ripe grapes. There's that old-vine concentration of gamy, meaty, earth flavors and dense blackberry fruit. It's a lush, intense wine with a creamy texture and a burly elegance. It's a total pleasure and well worth the above-average price. -- Michael Dresser

This wine is an exceptional value made with one of my favorite grapes for young red wine. Garnacha, the Spanish equivalent of the French grenache, may not be the most subtle of reds, but it produces full-bodied wines with up-front, exuberant flavors. This fine example offers bold flavors of blackberry, earth, herbs and black pepper. A little rustic? Yes, but delightfully so. From: Vinos de Madrid, Spain Price: $12 Serve with: Grilled meat, pizza, pasta

From: California Price: $11 Serve with: Hamburgers, pizza, casual fare The jug-shaped bottle is a little odd, but the wine inside is more than sound. It won't blow you away with its complexity, but it offers a lot of ripe fruit at an attractive price. It's a zinfandel-syrah-cabernet blend of medium to full body with flavors of black cherry, blueberry earth and spice - with a hint of leather reminiscent of an Aussie red. Enjoy it in its engaging youth. - Michael Dresser

From: Rheinhessen, Germany Price: $18 Serve with: Pork roast, poultry, grilled tuna If you have any doubts about global warming, here's evidence of its existence: a fully ripe, delicious red wine from up north in Germany. The label is a mouthful, but it helps to know that Herr Schneider have his name to a well-regarded winery, Dornfelder is a red grape that typically produces much weaker wine and trocken is the German word for "dry. " This wine is simply delicious – not heavy but full of intense cherry and wild berry flavor.

This red wine made from Bordeaux grapes — cabernet sauvignon, merlot and cabernet franc — along with syrah has turned out to be a harmonious and complex blend at a very appealing price. It's a smooth, subtle and layered wine with flavors of black cherry, smoked meat, herbs and earth. It's at a good state of maturity now but will only get better over the next 5 to 10 years. From: Toscana, Italy Price: $17 Serve with: Pasta, beef, lamb

For weeks, my inbox, Twitter timeline and ears have burned. Readers and colleagues can't stop talking about WC Harlan, a new bar in Remington. The praise has been gushing and unanimous. To them, WC Harlan is a wonder. But there was something else: The bar's owners - Matt Pierce of the local band Big in Japan and writer Lane Harlan - are not interested in publicity and would prefer we not list its address. During a time when bars hire public relations teams to generate buzz via social media and other outlets, WC Harlan would rather find success through solid execution and word-of-mouth marketing.

This artful blend of zinfandel, grenache, syrah, merlot and other red varietal is simply a very pleasant experience. The mix proves to be harmonious, and each variety seems to play its part perfectly. There's the power and earthiness of the zin, the broad shoulders of the syrah, the exuberant fruit of the grenache and the soft elegance of the merlot. The cherry and blackberry flavors are intense and penetrating but not harsh. It's a model of balance. It just goes to show that while the soil is crucial, the skill of the winemaker is important too. A big bonus is that Kendall-Jackson wines are widely available.