In wine, rules are made to be broken. Consider the case of serving temperatures and dolcetto.

Dolcetto is one of the world's most delightful red wines and one of our longtime favorites. It's made in the Piedmont region of Italy, where Barolo and Barbaresco are king but the locals drink dolcetto as an everyday treat. While the name means "little sweet one," dolcetto is dry, though it is aggressively fruity -- you could call it berry-like or grapey, and we often do. It tends to have a very dark appearance, a fruity nose of blackberries or blueberries, a dry finish and slight hints of chocolate and maybe some herbs. We're particularly fond of its earthy undertones. Dolcetto (pronounced dol-CHEH-toe) is generally a wine to buy and drink young. It usually costs less than $20 and pairs beautifully with just about any Italian food as well as other casual dishes, especially those with tomato and herb sauces. When we eat at Italian restaurants, this is often the wine we order, because of its food-friendliness and informality -- and because it's often one of the better buys on wine lists, though it has gained some popularity recently, which is never good for people like us looking for bargains.

Dolcetto is the name of the grape the wine is made from, so we've seen a few American dolcettos over the years, part of the growth of "Cal-Ital" varietals that also includes some American sangiovese and other Italian grapes.

The 2002 vintage was pretty much a disaster in Piedmont because of hail. The following year was unusual, too, because of the heat. Finally, 2004 was a return to a somewhat more classic growing season. What all of this meant to us was that it was time for a new tasting. Our question: How are the dolcettos on shelves these days? And how are their prices, now that this wine is no longer our sweet little secret?

We find that most stores offer at least a couple of dolcettos, but they usually require a bit of searching (they're often near the Barolos). None of them are produced in mass quantities, so there are a lot of names out there, and every store seems to have different ones. We found enough for a broad tasting; we bought only 2003 and 2004, because these are meant for early consumption. The bad news: Prices appear to be up. We think of dolcetto as a $12 to $14 wine, but we paid an average of more than $15.

We bagged the wines and tasted them in blind flights over several nights. We found them, in general, pretty charming. Overall, there was no question that the 2004s were more pleasant than the 2003s, which sometimes seemed unbalanced and slightly harsh. Dolcetto should be a fun wine -- if it's not pleasing, what's the point? -- and too many of the 2003 wines were hard to drink (although we also found the 2004s generally bigger than we'd expect from dolcetto). Still, there was a lot to like in these wines -- and we discovered a surprise, too.

One of the questions we're often asked is about the "right" serving temperature for wine. As with everything else about wine, to some extent this is a matter of personal taste. In general, we feel that whites are served too cold and reds are served too warm, especially at restaurants (although we should add that, over the past few years, more and more restaurants are getting it right. We're even seeing the dreaded ice bucket at fewer places). Personally, we prefer both reds and whites at about cellar temperature -- 55 degrees. In this column, we often recommend that you make sure that fine reds are served cooler than you might expect, and certainly below room temperature.

One reason we usually taste only six or eight wines a night for this column is so that we can give each one a chance to show its stuff. With a limited number of wines to taste, we can give them a chance to change as they warm and as they breathe, and we can taste them with and without food. Somebody cared about what's in that bottle; we want to give each wine every opportunity to prove its worth.

And here's what happened: During our dolcetto tasting, we found that too many of these, when first poured straight from the temperature-controlled wine cooler, tasted perfectly fine, but too flat and broad -- good, plum-blackberry fruit, some earth, but no real life, no vitality. We even used the word "ponderous" a few times, which is a word that should certainly never come up during a dolcetto tasting.

Then a remarkable thing happened. In flight after flight, as the wines warmed toward room temperature, some of them tasted better. There was suddenly more of a hint of chocolate and some herbs, especially mint. Most notably, the wines got livelier. Dolcetto has good tannins but not great acidity, in general, and the warmth seemed to bring out the acids, making the wines seem happier, livelier, more fun. With warmth, as Dottie said at one point, "it's like someone is squeezing a lime in them -- they're alive." Of course, we've experienced this change in some red wines many times before, but rarely in a tasting of a single varietal have we seen it occur in bottle after bottle.

So, here's the bottom line: Look around for a 2004 Dolcetto tonight. Prepare an Italian meal. Chill the bottle in the refrigerator for an hour or so to get it to cellar temperature -- and then let it warm so you can see how it changes. This will add a whole new dimension of fun to a wine that's meant to be fun anyway.