WINE

IN THE RED By James Chatto Indulge your craving for full-bodied, full-flavoured red wines—without the big price tags!

WHO DOESN’T LIKE a crisp white or a delicate, elegant light red wine? Actually, quite a number of people. For them, wine needs to be red, bigbodied and intense, preferably with plenty more flavours to offer than just fruit. The trouble is, wines like that are often quite expensive—unless you know where to look. Setting ourselves the challenge of finding 10 reds of genuine stature that are also priced at $15 and below, we turned up bargains from Portugal and Spain, Australia, South Africa and Chile. And we found they fell naturally into three groups based on the grapes used— Cabernets, blends involving Syrah (a.k.a. Shiraz) and blends of Portugal’s indigenous varieties. Big red lovers on a budget—these wines are for you!