One of the insecurities in buying wine is that you’re always sure that somebody else is getting a better deal than you.

This is not just about money, mind you. It’s that niggling sense, that pernicious worm of doubt, that what you just bought isn’t the “right” wine.

This afflicts wine buyers everywhere. And it makes good business for wine writers. Worried about getting to wine heaven? There are plenty of hellfire wine-writer preachers out there who trade on just such misgivings. Is your cellar too warm? When should you decant the wine? And for how long? What about the “right” glasses? Believe me, there’s money in this.

You get the picture. Now throw it away. The wines to follow are solvents to all guilt, frets, and niggling doubts. These reds are cheap, wonderful wines that you can serve in anything from a Fred Flintstone glass to a perfect piece of Baccarat or Riedel. Decant if you like. Or not.

This is wine at its carefree best. And rest easy: They are the “secret” bargains you’ve always suspected that somebody else was getting.

HERE’S THE DEAL

BONARDA 2004, COLONIA LAS LIEBRES Argentina is the new wine darling, and when you taste a red wine like this, you can understand why. The short version of the Argentina wine story is that the country has long had a wine tradition, thanks to Argentina’s Italian and Spanish influences. (Forty percent of Argentina’s population is of Italian origin; 30% is Spanish.)

Because of this, Argentina has vast vineyards, many of which boast vines of considerable age. The red malbec grape is Argentina’s signature variety, which creates an intense, sometimes hard-tasting red of considerable longevity.

Less often seen is the Italian red called bonarda. A specialty of the Piedmont region of northwest Italian (Buenos Aires has a sizable Piedmontese population dating from the early 1900s), bonarda used to be Argentina’s most widely grown red grape. Now it’s second to malbec. Still, there’s plenty of bonarda in Argentina: they’ve six times as much bonarda acreage as Italy – a veritable bonarda bonanza.

What Argentina does with bonarda is different from anything I tasted when I lived in Piedmont. Bonarda is always a deep-hued, fruity red wine. But in the same way that Australia’s eucalyptus trees grow to un-Australian dimensions in California, so too does bonarda magnify in Argentina to a scale unknown in northern Italy. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Proof is deliciously demonstrated in this 2004 bonarda called Colonia Las Liebres (The “colony of hares” is charmingly portrayed on the attractive blue and yellow label.)

The producer of Colonia Las Liebres is a consortium of Italians and Argentineans, including Italian wine importer Marc de Grazia, the big-name Italian consulting enologist Attilio Pagli, and several other Italian winery owners and luminaries. In 1995 they created a winery called Altos Las Hormigas and issued a malbec from 40-year-old vines that drew immediate attention.

Now comes a bonarda of equally compelling interest. This newly arrived 2004 bonarda is a dark-hued – almost opaque, really – grapey-tasting, richly fruity wine with refreshing acidity. It’s the sort of bright, fruit-popping “big red” with wafts of black currant, raspberry, and a hint of spice. What’s not to like? Also, it’s free of any pretentious oakiness. This red cries not for Evita but for sausages, hamburgers, and the like.

You can’t beat the price:$7.99. Look for a street price as low as $4.99.

LES HERETIQUES “VIN DE PAYS DE L’HERAULT” 2004, ANDRE ICHE This brand-named bottling called Les Heretiques is a southern French red wine blend of mostly carignan from 70-year-old vines along with syrah. From just where is unclear, but since the producer, Andre Iche of Chateau d’Oupia, is a leading grower in Minervois, chances are that he’s sourcing the wine from nearby precincts.

The name Les Heretiques, by the way, refers to the Cathari religious sect,which thrived in the Middle Ages and was eventually brutally suppressed by the Roman Catholic establishment, which declared them “heretics.” The town of Minerve (from which the district name Minervois derives) saw a massacre of their local adherents in 1208.

Les Heretiques 2004 is a bright-tasting red wine of medium weight with the cherry/berry taste of carignan and a bit of backbone from the addition of syrah. It’s exceptionally refreshing to drink, and you’ll find that the bottle (or rather, its contents) disappears quickly. Have this with a slice of meatloaf or pate, a plate of pasta, or some salami, and you’ve found an ideal quaffing red.

At $7.95 a bottle this is a bargain red wine for everyday drinking. It’ll make you feel like you’re in France.

TERRE DI PIETRA 2002, LUNELLI If ever a red wine has “flown under the radar,” it’s an northern Italian red called Terre di Pietra. A blend of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, and merlot with 25% each of the highly localized northern Italian red grapes lagrein and teroldego, it has proved to a consistently exceptional red wine.

This does not hold for the 2002 vintage, which was, to put it kindly, a difficult year in northern Italy. They had rain, hail in some spots, and cool weather everywhere. It wasn’t pretty.

But you would be well advised to set aside the rap against the 2002 vintage with Terre di Pietra. You’d never know from this wine that 2002 was anything other than a lovely harvest. Terre di Pietra 2002 delivers a fragrant chocolate-scented aroma (from the teroldego grape) lofted over a noticeably stony-tasting foundation (that’s the lagrein speaking). What results is memorable. Where the vintage does reveal itself is in the wine’s accessibility. Terre di Pietra 2002 is more open and fragrant than, say, the sterner 2001 bottling.

In short, this is a really lovely red that’s ideal for drinking right now, preferably with a good steak, a plate of pasta with meat sauce or loin of lamb. This is a red wine of exceptional breed and flavor distinction, selling at a price much lower than its refinement would suggest: $16.95. By the way, if you spy any older vintages (1999, 2000, or 2001), grab them. They’re all gorgeous.