Medium ruby; non-staining.  An incredible elixir of dark roots, sasparilla, incredible dank leather, cough-syrup, port, FRENCH OAK EXTRACT, vanilla extract, root beer extract, hell EVERY extract explodes off this thing.  Chocolate pudding, chocolate cake, a still, fat, over-wrought cellar-concoction like snorting Nyquil cut with Baker’s chocolate.  A sort of Amarone-type of dried out concentrated fruit and oak, oxidized and then brought back to life with PMBS.  It honestly isn’t that horrible-smelling of a wine, just all flabby and cola-ridden, burdened by a heavy hand stirring cellar-flaws.  In the mouth, new carpet, polyester immediate chemical overtones layered over a bright, redeeming Granny-Smith middle which almost immediately goes down on–errrr–I mean–goes directly to tannins so acrid–not hot, just blistering in their wet-cardboard-soaked-in-pool-chemicals way.  This thing has the potential of settling down into something far more interesting in 5 years, but it is Russian Roulette.  2011 Ch des Moines Menodin Bordeaux  13-5   ◊