From: Livermore Valley, Calif.
Price: $15
Serve with: Beef, lamb, game

Concannon is a respectable middle-class winery with most varietals, but with Petite Sirah, it is one of California's aristocrats. This robust red wine is a spectacular value, the equivalent of a good Chateauneuf-du-Pape at half the price. It's a complex, structured wine with a wonderful mix of flavors: blackberry, wild berries, smoked meat, chocolate and earth. Even in its youth, it has an enticing aroma that, given time, will evolve into a seductive bouquet. Appealing now, it will only get better with five to 10 years of age.

—Michael Dresser