Vidal-Fleury Cotes du Rhone

Wine: Vidal-Fleury Cotes du Rhone.

Grapes: grenache (60 percent), syrah (20 percent), mourvedre (20 percent)

Region: Cotes du Rhone, Southeastern France

Vintage: 2009

Price: $9.99

In the glass: Cotes du Rhone wine is a deeply opaque garnet-red color with a dense core going out into a fine light garnet-red rim definition and medium viscosity.

On the nose: It is incredibly attractive with mixed black pepper and sweetish red berry fruit, allspice character, red flowers, roses, then ripe cranberry juice, boysenberry sorbet and cherries jubilee, followed by hints of phenolics, white pepper and earth-driven minerality.

On the palate: It is a tasty wine right off the bat and opens with a supple, rounded melange of fruit terrine made from raspberries, cherries and blackberries. There’s sloe fruit juice there, too, and spice components with a touch of exotics. The midpalate continues the pleasant taste set by the opening, showing focused, balanced red and black fruit in play with soft tannins, going through to the finish, which is laced with a hint of anise, pepper and minerals from alluvial soils.

Odds and ends: Vidal-Fleury is a famous producer that gave rise to the even more famous E. Guigal Co. by selling some particularly choice vineyards out of its holdings that are now pure legend. This Cotes du Rhone wine from Vidal-Fleury is really a delicious wine that – unfortunately for some of its much more expensive peers – really stands out in a tasting of wines for less than $50. A wine from one of the greatest vintages in a half-century for this region, it should be able to withstand the tests of time and drink well through 2015, which is why $10 is a real value. Try it with pizza quite simply, because I think it’ll play nicely with the pepperoni that inevitably has to go on there.

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.