A smoky, cerebral wine

With most wines, I know right away: I like it or I don’t; it enhances the meal I’m eating or it doesn’t; it’s full or light or insipidly thin. But this one I had to taste for most of an evening — slowly, letting it breathe and change — with food between glass one and glass two. Still, its profile was very difficult to parse.

A blend of Merlot (80%) and Cabernet Sauvignon (20%), the Château La Fleur Plaisance is paint-strippingly tannic and ultra-rich. It has notes of chewy dark fruit — blackberry, raisin, and plum — but the most prominent flavor is wet wood, like an oak tree that’s been sliced open and rained on for a couple days. The nose is full of cigar. . . .not cigar box, which is refined, but actual cigar: tobacco and fire and smoke. (Alcohol 12.5%)

I found this $11 Bordeaux by chance while walking through Hennepin-Lake Liquor Store, an odd little wedge-shaped shop at 1200 W. Lake Street in Minneapolis that operates as if it were 1972. They don’t take credit cards, have no website, and keep their reserve wines in precariously tilted wall bins and haphazard stacks. Searching through the selections at Henn-Lake Liquors is like visiting a musty old bookstore, picking through the bins, and running across a discounted first edition of The Sound and the Fury.

I didn’t enjoy drinking the Château La Fleur Plaisance, the way I would a smoother, more comforting wine. But I delighted in the fact that it was dark, complicated, and interesting — challenging in a way that made me both perplexed and entertained. Much like reading Faulkner. . . .

So while I wouldn’t choose Château La Fleur Plaisance every day, it’s a nice departure from predictable pinot noirs and simple Spanish table wines. Occasionally, I like to exercise different sensibilities and bend my palate a bit. This is the perfect vehicle.