coppermoon makes a lovely wine! Peace porter for a white, painted turtle, it's kind of a trial and error! just buy a few cheap bottles and find one you really like. as I said, I have a list! chile has a great selection as stated above!

I could use that list bean...
Everytime I need to buy some wine for guests I have no clue whats worth buying, so usually end up with 3 bottles of meh..

I find red wine different that white, and also I found it quite common for people when new to red wine now knowing what they like. I found for myself at first all reds tasted the same and were ok, then as a drank more i started noticing the differances. red wine is generaly an aquired taste.

Ok so heavy medium light..

a heavy boddied wine is one with a in your face heavy flavor and after taste. the old convention is you would drink these with red meat and pasta as there flavore wouldn't be over powered by the food. If compaired to dairy products these would be like cream in your mouth

medium reds would be a little less intensity in flavor and taste, convention was that these were more suited for lighter foods and as a dairy it would be like whole milk in your mouth.

Light reds are kinda wattery in the flavor and taste and are great for drinking by them selves but would easily get overpowered by a lot of foods. compaired to dairy they would be like skim milk.


now conventions are out the window now also, the red for steak, white for fish no longer applies unless you are cought in a time warp somewhere, it is now what ever you liek with what ever. Some night I like a glass of cab sav because I want the bold oaked flavor.

now after saying all that I find it amazing that you didn't notice the difference between a Shiraz and a Cabernet Sauvignon, did you have them at the same time? I can understand it you had one then a few days or weeks later you had another. thats why I recomended wine tastings as a way to figure out what you realy like as the more you drink red wine the more you will notice the subtle differances.

we used to run 1 formal tasting a month in the shop which would consiste of 6 wines and be set up for about 30 people, but we used to have mini tastings several times a week to compare different wines when we got new ones or when customers needed some extra help picking a wine.

Steve

I agree with Bean, Coppermoon makes some nice wines for the dollar. My wife and I are fans of Chile & Australian wines, but there is also some other countries that do also make great wine. Once you find something you like pay attention to what region of the country it comes from as that makes a big difference. Can be from the same country but different regions make a big difference.