Picked this up on a whim at the grocery store for a spaghetti and meat sauce dinner.

Producer: Rocca delle Macie  (pronounced ROH-kah DELL-eh mah-CHEE-ah)

Grapes: 95% Sangiovese, 5% Merlot

Appellation: Sangiovese di Toscana (IGT)

Vineyards: estate vineyards

Aging: unknown

Alcohol: 13%

Price: $13

My tasting notes:  The first whiff bursts with juicy cherry aromas followed by some leathery notes. Subsequent sniffs don’t elicit the same bright fruit…I start to get more dried flowers with the fruit in the background. (We have this bunch of roses that I gave to my wife at least a decade ago and she dried and kept — the smell of those dried roses is what comes to mind.) On the palate, the cherry notes remain, though now a bit darker and mixed with spices. Makes me think of a Persian dish of rice and cherries that I’ve had a few times. There is also a iron/graphite minerality to this. Finishes very dry.

Assessment/score: As I write this, I feel like it’s sounding better than it actually tastes. Not that I’m not enjoying it…it’s a solid bottle. I like it just fine. But I don’t “like it like it”, as we used to say in the 6th grade. B-/C+

Free association: Tropic Thunder – On paper I should have liked this movie more than I did. Jack Black, Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. … all actors I like. And funny previews. But at the end of the day, it didn’t add up to a memorable movie.