Somebody say wine...?
Both my wife and I love wine, and we are both partial to full bodied reds. Whenever we dine out, we always order a bottle of wine, and we'll also have wine at most full meals at home.
For a number of years, I had very good luck at finding red wines rated in the low 90's (Robert Parker ratings), for $20.00 a bottle and under. Now it's more like $25-$28 and under for the same. As much as we love wine, our wine storage cooler only holds 60 bottles. That might sound like a lot to a novice wine drinker, but I have friends who have coolers with an excess capacity of 500 bottles or more (and they're mostly full).
For someone new at wine drinking it can be a little intimidating with all of the different varietals available. And the snobery and pretention that often accompanies it can be pretty off putting. The best advice I could give to someone in this situation is to ignore the "experts" who try to force their opinions on you, and simply drink what you like. An expensive, highly rated Paulliac or Cabernet might make a wine connoisseur rave, but if it doesn't taste good to you, what do you care? There are lots of reasonably priced wines that you can experiment with while learning...without breaking the bank either.
Some of the best bang for the buck wines IMHO, are the Australians. The wines bearing the "Yellow Tail" label for example, are very inexpensive, and very drinkable. I especially like their Shiraz. The Shiraz goes for $10.79 for a 1.5 ltr. bottle at the local wholesale club (that's like$5.40 for a std. size bottle). Some other decent wines for the money; Wolff Blass, Rosemount Estates, Lindermans, Black Opal - and one of my favorites, Ravenswood Shiraz (which is actually an American vintner making a Shiraz down under). Particularly good regions for red wine in Australia: Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, and Coonawarra.
For California, I prefer the Sonoma's - particularly the Alexander and Russian River Valley's. Much of Napa has become very pretentious and pricey in recent years, although there are still deals there if you search.
I'd better stop here....I could talk all day about wine...
ETA: At Tim's request, the wines I spoke of are generally full bodied reds. Big fruit, & on the dry side.