13 American Red Wines Great For Holiday Sharing

While we love celebrating the winter holidays with lots of sparkling wines, when it comes down to the wines we drink with festive dinners that we host or to which we are invited, we reach for our reliable, sturdy reds.

For celebrating the end of an old year and the start of a new one, we've chosen an American cross section, ranging from pinot noir to merlot, cabernet sauvignon to zinfandel. Most of these 13 wines are from the West Coast, and many of the names are familiar ones — Paul Hobbs, Martinelli, Mount Veeder, Franciscan, and Gary Farrell. But we have also included relatively newer ones such as Frank Family, Anaba, and Albatross Ridge.

Here are 13 wines that you can give as a gift this holiday season, or enjoy on your own.

Plummy with dark flavors, hints of chocolates, good acidity, and nice balance.

Enjoyable, though not very complex — straightforward tastes of ripe cherry with integrated tannins.

A variety of enjoyable flavors — plums, earthy mushrooms, chocolate brownies.

Moderate body and somewhat lean, savory, and tannic with dark cherry flavors.

Lots of bright fruit, good acidity, and a finishing tang. Mostly likely will improve over the next few years — if you can keep it.

A complex wine with tangy blackberry flavors, good tannins, and acidity; lean but not thin. It is quite good either sippin' or with food.

Rounded, big-fruit flavors of blackberries and dark cherries with hints of anise and chocolate. Good structure and integrated tannins.

Quite nice flavors of dark cherry, light caramel, some smoke, and earthiness, but it could perhaps use a stronger backbone.

A very enjoyable wine with rounded fruity flavors and a pungent, buttermilky finish. As with many of Hobbs' wines, the oak flavors are quite apparent.

Warm, plump cherry flavors that are fruit-forward, although not over the top — truly a generous wine.

Complex and intriguing and not your typical zin — lots of savory smells and tastes of wild cherry, dried herbs, and smoke, but also pastry cream in the finish.

A big wine, but still very much a pinot with cola, tobacco, and root flavors integrated into rich, black cherries. Just a lovely wine — a tad hot, but that element adds to its charms.

Merlot-dominated (82 percent) with rounded, cherry flavors and hints of walnut and sweet chocolate. Very good food wine with integrated tannins — fruity, but not too fruit-forward.