My favorite red isn’t actually on any of the lists. Saperavi and Marani wines are among my favorites these days. They are both from the Kakheti region of Georgia, the first winemakers in the world, incidentally, all still made the “old fashioned” ways and have as much depth and complexity as a good zinfandel with a smoothness and fragility of a merlot.
If you can find a Georgian Saperavi I urge you to try them!

Very sad Peonlylane….my sympathies to you. I had to really quit the dark reds for awhile and I truly missed them. My current fave is Malbec!!! Since we are daily wine imbibers though, I save the Malbecs for special occasions since they are more costly than the merlots and cheap zinfindels.

They are all so good, Merlot is often light and fruity and could even take a slight chilling for those Summer days. Zinfandell is more complex but deeper still is the Malbec which are a favourite in Argentina. The best though comes from Cahors in France, they have some fine complex examples.

I dearly love red wine, and used to be able to enjoy it all. Something switched in my body, and now I get horrible migraines from drinking reds. The only red I can get away with now is the Nuveau. So sad!

I prefer Merlot — fruity and goes with about anything… I found this web page about reds:http://www.shopwiki.com/wiki/Red+Wines