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 ◊