America’s Best-Selling Premium Wines

One of the most respected names in Tuscan wine — in Italian wine in general — Marchese Antinori created the first-evern “super-Tuscan,” a wine with a Chianti heritage but employing grapes from other regions, like cabernet sauvignon and merlot, that could not be used legally for Chianti. This well-balanced, middle-of-the-road wine, itself no longer labeled “Chianti,” is made with those two grapes, along with syrah and Tuscany’s principal red grape, sangiovese.

Prisoner, now owned by the massive international wine company Constellation Brands, produces only two wines currently — The Prisoner (a blend of five red-wine grapes) and this meaty, smoky zinfandel-based offering.

This estimable Napa Valley winery’s Artemis cabernet is known for being rich and spicy, with intense fruit. It’s also a bargain, compared with the Stag’s Leap Estate Collection cabernets, which sell for $150 and up per bottle.

Another good example of Marlborough sauvignon blanc (see No. 18), the Giesen is bright and crisp, with an attractive mineral character — good shellfish wine, among other things.

A dry, fresh blend of grenache, rolle, cinsault, syrah, and mourvèdre, this popular rosé overcame even the star power of the Pitt-Jolie Miraval Rosé (No. 25) in popularity among wine.com customers with its fruity aroma and elegant, bone-dry character on the palate.