First of all, what is your price range?? Over $200? Under $30? $50-70?

You say you have been visiting wineries in your area. Are you limiting the exchanges to only American wines? Or are Sake, Asti, and Gerwurtraminer wines going to be Ok to suggest?

If you can give an idea of what your favorites are, it would be more helpful.

There are pleanty of wine rating sites on the Internet. You may want to order online so that you can find something unique that is not sold locally where you live.

I would think nothing over $30.00 . My friends and I are on limited budgets. I never thought about a sake or anything else. We are more than willing to try imported wines. We like anything sweet, but not like a syrup. Lambrusco is one of our favorites. I have a friend that really likes merlot, but it cant be dry or bitter in any way. My personal favorite is from a winery in Ohio. It is in the Lake Erie Islands. It's is called Heineman's, and they have a wine called sweet belle that I absolutely love. I would love a suggestion on a Sake. I have never tried one before. To tell you the truth, I didnt know it was wine. That should tell you how far my "education" goes. Please any suggestions would be fine!

Sake is not wine. Wine is fermented fruit juice. Sake is made from dried grain, which has no juice. More like beer.

But the question was good. W/out more info, it is hard to recommend something. If you have been drinking wine from KY and OH, you are drinking pretty sweet stuff probably. Most of what people would consider "fine" wine is not made that way, but there are exceptions.

Sweetness generally comes from unfermented sugars in the juice. The sweetness in the local wines may come from added sugar as well - who knows.

But in general, it is more common to find sweeter reds than whites. So if you are looking at imported wines, you can look at many German rieslings. (Riesling is a grape.) These are categorized by the sugar in the grapes at harvest, from QBA and Kabinett (less sugar) to Auslese and Beerenauslese and trokenbeerenauslese (more sugar and MUCH more costly.)

Germany has had great harvests over the past few years, so it is hard to really go wrong. Here are some that are available now, all for $20 - $33 or so and all of which I just bought. (Spatlese is an intermediate sugar level that should suit you perfectly.)

2005 Robert Weil Spatlese
2005 Weingart Riesling, Sch.Fur.Spatlese
2005 Haag, Fritz Riesling, Bra.Juf.Spatlese
2005 J.J. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spatlese
2005 J.J. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese
2005 Donnhoff Riesling, Schl.Fel.Spatlese
2005 Donnhoff Qba
2005 Gunderloch Nackenheimer Rothenberg Spat
2005 Gunderloch Nackenheimer Rothenberg Auslese
2005 Muller Catoir Spatlese

But keep in mind that the sugar at harvest does NOT always equate to the sugar after fermentation. THose are 2 different things. You can pick low sugar, not ferment completely dry, and have a sweeter wine than if you picked at high sugar but fermented it all into alcohol. Mostly, but not 100% of the time, spatlese would be kind of sweet.

And if you can't get any of those on this list, just find a decent store and ask for a good, not dry, riesling. Hard to go wrong these days. Just remember that "dry" means no residual sugar in the wine, so it won't be sweet.

Gwertztraminer is another grape that is often rather sweet. It also has a beautiful floral nose. The rieslings can smell and taste like tart apples and pineapples, the gwertz can smell like lychees and taste a bit like them too.

There are good rieslings and gwertz's made in the US, in Michigan, NY, and Washington, for example. Many are likely to have some residual sugar, but they are not as neatly categorized as the Germans. If you were to select a grape from the eastern US in fact, I would suggest that you select a white rather than a red, for which I would go to California or Washington.

And eventually you will look at some less sweet wines too!

Happy hunting.

One of my personal favorites that is little known (as far as I know) is 'Petite Sirah' from Bogel's Vineyard, Napa Valley. It is a rich red wine with just enough oak to give it body and charactor. I have tried three of Bogel's wines and they were all excellent.
(the Petite Sirah grape is not new but it is just getting attention.
You can go to www.psiloveyou.org to a website dedicated to the grape. It has links to many vineyards and wineries as well as information about the grape and the wine.
Oh, the Bogel's runs about $12. here. (Eastern North Carolina) A steal.

Sorry about the Sake suggestion. I got carried away posting. Yes, sake is not wine.