This is the wine that was the forebearer of the Provenance Beckstoffer. It just did not bear the name back then.
I am somewhat stumped by the wine. I have had several bottles of both this bottling and the Rutherford wine of the same vintage. In the early days, this was the much more serious wine but was in need off more time than the Rutherford. Because of this, I drank the Rutherfords more consistently and checked in with these every now and then to see how they were changing. Having finished my rutherfords, I decided to open another one of these tonight, for the first time in a bit over a year.
Time has not been good to this wine. In 2007, the wine was hitting on all cylinders. In 2008, it had shed some of the fruit and was showing more closed than I liked, which led me to wait this long to see if it opened back up. Tonight’s bottle was expressive on the front end, but thin in the middle and quite a bit of chalky tannin on the finish. Some complexity was apparent, with a high note of mint being very prevalent. Some tobacco notes along with raspberry, but overall an out of balance profile.
I am a fan of the Provenance wines overall, and the last few 2001 Rutherfords have been exceptional values. But this bottle just did not do it for me and seemed like a continuing downtrend based on the bottle a year ago. I have one bottle left and will probably open it soon just to see if it is any different. If you are still holding any, I’d say open them now, as I don’t see anything good happening from this point forward.