Milky pale garnet widening to obvious amber at the edge. Extremely vegetal nose: soggy lettuce and haricots verts, warm and old-lady perfumed, a sharp contrived acidity agitating Almond Joy and Astro-turf into a musty fury.

This is a fun little spot at the back end of Tin City in Paso Robles. Had a number of their wines over the years, and while all fairly solid wines, nothing mind-bogglingly good. This one is bottled for you at the TR on demand. Behind a door out of sight, so I do not know whether it was siphoned out of a barrel, tapped out of a tank, or–to give him the absolute best possible benefit of the doubt here: drawn from keg. I’ve had wines bottled for me on demand at wineries from all three methods and even in its purest possible scenario, you have to admit there’s an extra step there that could seriously affect not only short-term vibrancy but long-term vitality.

Oxidized and lifeless in the mouth, the only thing still churning is a shrill citrus which–as it barely dies down late palate–allows a wee bit of sour cherry onto the stage, which manages to sway the crowd already headed angrily for the exits into turning and staying a bit, contemplating maybe this whole package is merely some natural-wine shenanigans and we are being too hard on it. Then you smell it again, sip it again, and swallow it again, and the face it leaves on you tells the story of no redemption.

NV LEFONDUSAC Red Wine Central Coast hand-labeled: “2016 C+C”

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