Med ruby, clear edges with garnet mid-tones.  An initial fat oxidation scared me, but it almost immediately blew off–but surfaced again in still, aired glasses.  Round and full, elegant but an uninteresting HI-Punch sorta black cherry maraschino Luxardo situation with AL heavy in the background.  Spicy and bitter in the nose bouncing a rubbery-earth aspect along and creating a whole frontal-nasal-clearing element.  It is not all earth, nor barnyard, nor funk nor anything terribly interesting, merely clean, simple fruit.  This is the second day of a very bad habit which can not continue.  I have weeks of experiments in queue and both yesterday and today I have pulled into a local winery and bought a bottle on my way home and then opened it!  Both are fairly well-reputed Pinot producers and both are just steps off the 101–making it tempting for a label you have not visited in a while.  Before I move on to tasting this, more notes on the bouquet are required.  It keeps moving back into a flabby, simple arena from a hot spicy direction.  Air REALLY affects this thing–as it SHOULD with Pinot, but nothing interesting comes of it.  In the mouth, a fairly voluptuous attack waters down to nothingness and heads directly into rather acrid tannin without as much as a hug of middle.  A little match-head and briar is all you are left with.  And there comes that hot nose again.  An interesting wine, definitely.  But underwhelming.  13-8   ◊