I'm in Peoria for the weekend, it's a long story, but whenever I'm in a new town for me I try to hit one or two of the good restaurants (had dinner at Seven on Prospect last night) and a local wine shop to see what's up. I went to a place called Friar Tuck Beverage. It's apparently a chain of 4 or 5 stores in Central and Southern Illinois with a new one across the Mississippi in Missouri. Anyway they had a large nice selection of a wide variety of wines ranging from cheap jug (pink zinfandel - whatever) to pretty nice (meaning I liked some - such as Domaine Grand du Venuer). I ended up buying this southern rhone - It is labeled Appellation Corbieres Controlee - Montagne D'Alaric.
I tend to love Southern Rhone wines so I'm biased to begin with. But this is really good stuff. Very dark purple, maybe a little too much oak for my usual taste, but I'm willing to make an exception for this wine. There's a hint of the herbs and flowers that I like with southern french wines but not very much. The palate though explodes with pomegranite, blue and blackberries, initially sweet on the attack but then drying nicely and somehow evolving into mild but clearly evident tannins. The finish is not sweet but dry with pomegranite again and it's a fairly long finish. There's spice and pepper at the end too. This is a solid wine that I'd buy again if I come across it. I paid about 20 bucks for this which given the dollar is probably not a bad deal. I've since seen it on the internet for anywhere between 13 and 30 bucks.