Dark garnet with wide clear edges.  Initial nauseous gym-socks and dirty baby diaper blow off quite nicely into miserably cloying fruit with a background of yesterday’s coffee and wet pine-tree branches.  This was a Grocery Outlet purchase, and say what you want, but who among you are NOT gonna try a Russian River Valley Pinot Noir for 5 bucks.  Come’on!  Like a moth to light!  The really sad part is:  I have tasted worse pinots for three times this price and for that reason alone it should automatically get ♦♦♦.  Ripe and round in the mouth, with a tiny bit of acid pokin up and desperately trying to hang on through the fat, thick finish punctuated with a drop of tannin.  For $4.99, you can do a lot worse.  But oh dear Dog why.  It’s just so uninteresting, so formulaic, so vapid and lost.  13-6   ◊