When you’re planning on serving steak with steak sauce, or topping burgers with ketchup, or eating ribs with barbecue sauce--you want something red, and you need something slightly sweet! This is when Shiraz comes in. If you seek out young, inexpensive wines made from the Shiraz grape, chances are they'll have a fruity, bouncy sweetness that goes magnificently with sweet-ish red-wine foods.

Special Attributes

• Young: drink only 2001 and 2000 right now.

  
  

• Inexpensive: 7 bucks is best, but don't spend over $15-20 (there are lots of expensive Aussie Shiraz wines out there that are not sweet at all!)

-David Rosengarten

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