Wine reviews
Offers a rich, layered mix of complex mineral, dried currant, blackberry, cedar and spice flavors. Full-bodied, a bit chunky and rough-hewn, but intense and powerful in a positive way. Ends with chewy tannins. Best from 2012 through 2022. 1,077 cases made. – JL
Tom Rinaldi interprets the To Kalon Vineyard with more restraint than most of Beckstoffer's customers. He makes a wine of Oakville opulence, without hyperripeness or excess weight. This 2007 shows the class of the vineyard, its tannin inseparable from the fruit, the two perceived as one. Succulent cherry flavors burst in the mouth along with resonant notes of mushrooms and earth. It's the deep tone of the fruit that lasts, beautifully balanced and long. This should be at its peak ten years from the vintage, though it will be a pleasure to drink along the way. (1,077 cases) Provenance Vineyards, Rutherford, CA
From the famed vineyard in Oakville comes this dramatic wine. It will benefit from a few years in the cellar to let the tannins mellow, although it's so good now, you can open it right away and give it a decant. Drinks sweet and lush in blackberries and black currants, with a rich overlay of smoky cedar. -- S.H
Great flavors meet great structure, offering pure, firm, focused black cherry, plum, currant and wild berry fruit, with touches of spice, cedar, mineral and graphite. Firms on the finish, where the tannins tighten. Best from 2012 through 2022. 200 cases made. -- J. L.