Adobe Road Winery Redline Red Wine

Wine: Adobe Road Winery Redline Red Wine.

Grapes: cabernet sauvignon (60 percent), syrah (20 percent), zinfandel (20 percent)

Region: Sonoma, Calif.

Vintage: nonvintage

Price: $9.99

In the glass: Adobe Road Redline wine is a densely colored garnet red with a deep semi-opaque core going out into a fine, light garnet-colored rim definition and medium viscosity.

On the nose: This is a liquid cousin of cherries jubilee, which was made famous in all the classic steakhouses back in the day, prepared tableside. The wine also has new oak, brambleberries, vanilla bean stalk, black Twizzlers, tar and fair bits of phenolic compounds with underlying earthy mineral aspects.

On the palate: This is a very muscular wine with full-bodied characteristics, sporting loads of crushed cherry, marionberries, loganberries and huckleberry sauce, on account of the rustic edge. Everything else in the berry department has a sweetish edge to it. But it's quite common for zinfandel to add this ripe and concentrated aspect to the wine. It has a sweet portlike edge to it going through the midpalate and finishes with oomph and some natural "heat."

Odds and ends: If you go to the website of this winery, you'll see that a bottle of this wine is selling for $25. Given that it can be found in the local market for less than $10, I think we have a clear value winner here. Many readers will ask why this is a so-called nonvintage, but the explanation is simple. If you own a winery and want to put out a great little brand that has some sort of continuity to it, then making a similar blend year in and year out is quite restrictive, because grapes have to be sourced from the same places and vintages can change from year to year, based on weather. An "NV" wine is not only practical, but let's be honest, 98 percent of all wines are bought and consumed within one week of the purchase, so it makes little sense to worry about vintages and aging potential. Just produce a great little superdrinkable wine like this one and all is well in the wine region. Owners Kevin and Debra Buckler are deeply involved in motor racing as team owners of the TRG Racing Team, hence the "Redline" in the wine's name, a term referring to a speedometer reaching a critical area. It will be good now through 2014.

Gil Lempert-Schwarz's wine column appears Wednesdays. Write him at P.O. Box 50749, Henderson, NV 89106-0749, or email him at gil@winevegas.com.