Deep black garnet and staining ruby edges.  Anyone who reads me regularly knows how much weight I put on a wine’s smell.  Perhaps I judge a little to much on the bouquet sometimes, but hey, that’s just me.  Make your own decisions.  So this bottle is going to be a little different.  This wine smells like absolute shit.  Really–and not a good shit, like Pinot should, but offish weird aromas which *kinda* breathe out, but not completely.  Yeasty–like sparkling wine should smell–fresh baked bread, vitamins: B vitamins, Multi-vitamins.  One-A-Day with Iron.  Nutritional yeast.  It smells flabby and oxidized.  Latex, wet sand paper, water in a plastic bottle in a hot car–you left there a week ago.  With a WHOLE BUNCH of air, some of these aromas meld together into what could actually be almost mistaken for minerality.  And then you taste it.  Rich.  Sparkling.  Mouth-filling.  Bright.  Dense.  Sweet.  Chewy.  Elegant.  Full.  Magnificently fruited.  Incredibly extracted.  Luxurious tannins.  This thing is, like, dessert in the mouth.  Which is reward enough–after having to stick my nose in it.  A little oxidation possibly peeking up from its CLEAR overt ripeness but not a sign of AL anywhere.  So whadya do?  How much do you mark this thing down?  I’m removing one full diamond.  15-0   ♦