What price range are you looking for?

For the most part the price doesn't matter, but I would say up to $30. I will still take any suggestions no matter the price. Just interested in hearing everyone's favorites.

Have you go a good wine store near you? We are quite close to the Santa Lucia Highlands area, and the wineries are known for their Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays. These probably won't be in your local grocery store, but at good wine retailers. We subscribe to a couple of buying clubs where we get a couple of bottles every three months, it's a treat.

Here's our area, take a tour!

Santa Lucia Highlands

One of our favorites is Hahn, and I count the wife of one of the vintners at another winery as a good friend. Anything labeled as from "Garys' (yes, plural) Vineyard" is special, wines made by several wineries but from same vines.

Here in Kansas we have liquor stores, but nothing that is just a wine store. In Kansas you still cannot buy wine or hard liquor in grocery stores, but they are trying to change that. We do have bigger liquor stores that do have a large selection of wine.

I favor German White Wines. Spatlese & Auslese.

Lately, I've been enjoying Dreaming Tree Crush.

Hubs and I enjoy good wine. We have close to 850 bottles of wine in our wine cellar. Which wine we drink depends on whether we are having wine with dinner (and, if so, what we are eating) or just enjoying a glass of wine by itself.

I don't know where you live, but if at all possible you should go wine tasting at several wineries. Also some grocery stores will host wine tasting events at the store.

I like the Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling.

From their website:

Our Cold Creek Riesling is made from 30-year-old vines and delivers a ripe, lush style of Riesling with aromas of ripe peaches, dried apricots and spice notes. It displays beautiful fruit intensity with a crisp finish.

Lucy here's my goblet lol

Jewels, I did a search for Kansas wine stores since it sounded from your post like sales weren't restricted to government stores, like in some places. There also seem to be some local wineries. Here's a sample:

http://www.wine-searcher.com/merchants/usaxkansas,x,12
http://www.gomers.com/
http://kansaswinerytrail.com/

http://www.travelks.com/dining/wineries-breweries/

http://kansascity.cityvoter.com/best/wine-shop/specialty-food-and-drink/kansas-city

Start online. See if you can find some tastings. Those would be fun things to do with your girlfriend. You do have to be careful about how much wine you actually, ingest, however, or make it a weekend, and stay near enough to walk/taxi. People really do spit the wine out at tastings, because after a glass or two's worth of wine, your ability to taste accurately goes away. People often can't even tell the difference between scotch and bourbon after two drinks.

Also, if there are no stores near you with knowledgeable wine merchants, start getting in touch with some a little farther away. Again, a great date activity to take a trip to talk to the wine guy and buy a bottle or two to bring home. As you learn what you like, you can start to take advantage of promotions and "lay down" a few bottles at a time, especially if you have to travel to buy it. Just make sure you have somewhere good to keep them if you buy more than you can drink right away. They should not be next to an outside wall, and should be kept low, since heat rises. You're trying for dark, and the most stable temperature in the house. The bottom of an interior coat closet works well.

I'm fortunate to live in an area that has 60-some wineries, some of which are quite good. Just tonight I went to one of my favorites, called Glass House Winery that is named for the large greenhouse full of tropical plants attached to the tasting room.
An acquaintance of mine was booked there to play music with his jazz trio and I thought it would be a fun way to spend Friday night.

In my opinion their white wines are good, but their three red wines are exceptional.
Tonight I had this wine:

C-Villian
This red blend of 82%
Chambourcin and 9% Cabernet Franc, 9% Merlot is smooth and bright, with
strong aromas of fig and raisin, and a rich full-bodied mouth feel. It
is affectionately named C-Villian to honor our city and our neighbors

Although my favorite of theirs is:

Glass House Winery Barbera Reserve

This is a bold red made
from 75% Barbera, 13% Merlot, 12% Malbec grapes and made in the Passito
style of drying the grapes to enhance flavors and aromas, much like the
Italian Amaroné wines.

I was talking to the owner, and he said the 2012 Barbera was pretty much a total loss due to excessive rain late in the season, and that the 2013 will be pretty good when it is ready in August. He then went on to say that the 2014, in his opinion will be world class.

Based on your list, I don't think you'd like what I like. Some friends and I had a luscious zinfandel tonight called Temptation. It had a rather high alcohol content (14.5%). It was red. I don't consider white zin to be a wine. :-)

I agree with the people saying you should taste as many wines as possible. Learn what you like right now, and enjoy the process of learning and developing your palate. Your tastes may change over time. I live in a wine-producing region and have gone on two wine tours so far, with large groups of people. We went to several wineries and tasted a range of local wines. We went right through the sweet/dry spectrum from bone-dry Chardonnay to sweet red wine which that winery made into frozen slushies. Yes, wine slushies are a thing. I don't think we found a single wine the entire group agreed was delicious. We all had fun, and we all found wines we liked, but each person's preferences were different.

I prefer red and low tannins, so a merlot. Found this last fall and really liked it:

I cook with it, so I buy Mateus.

In the summer I prefer a riesling and in the winter I prefer a red blend like Menage et trois. I don't have expensive tastes. I used to buy Chateau Ste. Michelle riesling 3/10.00, my how times have changed.

My new favorite is Malbec from Argentina and Chile. It's a red.

We like Fuzion, a red Argentinian Malbec wine.

I used to be a big wine drinker but very very rarely drink any type of alcohol now due to all the meds I take. But just yesterday we were grocery shopping and I was going by the wines in my scooter and saw a label that caused an immediate flash back to my youth! A bottle of Mogan David blackberry! My grandfather had a glass or 2 every day for dinner. He would let me have a sip, I was in love with it. To me it was like grape juice. When I got to be high school age I found a bottle of it in their hunting camp and snatched it. My friends and I drank the entire bottle! I got so sick that night.
So yesterday thanks to the memories of my wonderful grandfather I bought a bottle of Mogan David blackberry wine and had a little glass with dinner! LOL It was as good as I remembered, very sweet and tasty.
Back when I was a wine drinker I preferred dry wines, now not so much.
For summer parties on the pool patio I used to always do a big batch of sangria with lots of fresh fruit and berries, so good on a hot day.

Elio Perrone Bigaro! I've tried a few wines and always come back to Elio! I recently purchased 4-5 bottles of other wines to sample what was out there and they were nowhere near as good. Wished I had spent it all on the Bigaro. It runs about $20-25, and well worth every penny.