This deep, dark red wine tastes really expensive. But it’s not. Thanks to its semi-obscure Iberian birthplace — how about that for a hint? — this old-school red delivers the quality of an old-vine, well-aged, and perfectly oaked Northern Italian Barolo or Barbaresco, but at $9.99 at about a tenth of the price. It’s got a rich nose of black fruits, tar, earth, and some crushed violet, plus a lush, soft mouthfeel with loads of blackberry liqueur, chocolate, and more of those freshly-laid blacktop notes. Good finish. Some sediment in my last glassful. Definitely a low-tech wine that’s had many years in cask and bottle before release, like a Rioja riserva, only more densely-packed with fruit. It’s got a tiny bit of rusticity to it, too, that tells me we’re not dealing with a well-known “international” grape variety like cabernet, merlot, even termpranillo.

If this wine were a faro singer in a previous life, she’d have had a mournful, alto voice. Send me your guess, or click here for the answer:

Anyone who likes the gypsy love songs of the faro will have figured out that this wine is from Portugal. The amazing price is also a give-away. Indeed: that country, once known only for its deliciously sweet fortified wine, Port, is increasingly making its mark with affordably-priced dry table wines, especially robust reds like this one, which I enjoyed with a grilled steak. We know, moreover, that this wine spent a lot of time ageing before it was released, so if you guessed a vintage in late nineties, you’d be right, since this one is a 1999. I told you it was less than ten bucks, so we know the price; all that’s left is the winery and the grape type, neither of which I expect anyone to have at the tip of her tongue. The grape, first off, is Castelão, which I hear from Weimax Wines, where I bought my bottle, is also known as periquita, or “little parrot.” It’s widely planted in the Palmela region, where the winery that made this wine, Pegos Claros, is located.

Says Gerald at Weimax: “I read in a book on Portuguese wines that the estate still does some ‘foot treading’ of the grapes and that the wines are fermented in stone lagares. The wine is matured in Portuguese oak barrels for about a year and then is given substantial bottle aging before release. This is certainly ‘old world’ wine, being a far cry from today’s wines-on-steroids. At ten bucks a bottle for a seven year old, mature red wine, this is well worth a look.”

Naturalmente!