Wine: Feels like red season

Time to put away those “lighthearted whites” of summer, said Peter Gianotti in Newsday. When my mind turns to stews, and game, and the steak that might mark the last hurrah of the season for my grill, I always want “something huskier” in my glass—something like one of these three full-bodied reds.

2009 Steelhead Vineyards Red ($15). Cabernet sauvignon and zinfandel meet in a Sonoma blend “rife with blackberry and just enough tannin.”

2008 Amapola Creek Monte Rosso Vineyard Zinfandel ($30). “Ideal with beef stew,” this “concentrated and very pure” old-vine zin throws off “loads of black fruit, along with a suggestion of spice.”

2008 Newton Vineyard Unfiltered Cabernet Sauvignon ($60). This big wine is “elegant and harmonious, potent and complex.”