March 18, 2024 - This is still drinking exceptionally well. Slow ox’d for 6 hours. Nose is superb - black fruits, tobacco, cedar box, damp earth. Wine is more youthful than I would have thought, both visually and in the palate. Black currants, blackberries, tobacco, earthy notes. Good minerality, and enough acidity to keep this fresh. This should age further, and likely develop more tertiaries, over the next 5yrs - likely more. Paired beautifully with ribeye steaks. My last bottle. I wish I had more.
January 2, 2024 - Slo-ox 4 hours.
Obtained from winery. For this bottle at least, Tanzer's note from 2020 closer to what I drank than Galloni recent note. No bricking, good black fruit in good balance with mild secondary elements and tannins still present but proportional. Could have mistaken for Bdx in a ripe year. Bottles with this provenance (I have had two) can go 10 more years easily, maybe 15. Even a half bottle we recently drank had plenty of life left. Not the over-the-top style of some Napa cabs and I really enjoyed drinking this. I think it can even improve some from here.
May 8, 2023 - Opened and decanted for about an hour.
Very dark purple ... doesn't look 22 years old.
Very pretty nose of cassis, currant, a bit of cigar box.
Nicely balanced palate with Med tannin, enough acidity to keep it fresh, and a long finish. Lovely dark fruit with intensity and focus. Brilliant now, but will last and improve as the tannins continue to soften. I am still drinking 1991 and 1992 which show well today. The 2001 will last another 20 years easily. A treat and a tremendous value
March 14, 2023 - Picked this bottle up from Spectrum Auctions last year. Sitting in a cool cellar on its side since. Bought it to drink with a friend who's a big Beringer Private Reserve guy and he finally arrived in the last few days to enjoy a few bottles with his drinking buddies. Pnp'd to find what smelled like a cork fault to me at first but it was faint and also smelled strongly of freshly tilled black dirt. That was the predominant nose on the cork, just black dirt....so into a decanter for a few hours yesterday afternoon, prior to our event. I tried to sample a small pour over the next few hours but just couldn't do it whenever I brought the glass close enough to my face! Carol said "it's skunk ass!" And she was probably right. I've never encountered a bottle like this in my wine drinking life. Poured it back into the bottle under its cork (for all of 20 minutes) to take to HMCs for our event. Removed the cork and warned them about what they were going to taste. Behold......it actually improved in bottle. A tad of fruit became identifiable on the nose, but just a tad. We all had sips for a few minutes but then it became clearer to everyone that the wine was bad and going downhill rapidly from that point. Oxygen was NOT its friend. Depriving it of oxygen was. Down the drain it went.....like everyone else on here who's had a number of wines over the years, I've had some corked bottles before, and actually drank a few of them in spite of their fault, but this was by far the weirdest behaving and most "skunk ass" outlier of them all.
December 27, 2022 - Ripe Cabernet. Deep color, fruity and ripe nose. Dark fruits, black currant, some smoke. Wonderful sweetness. Excellent concentration. Long and intense finish. Wouldn’t hold it too long.
October 31, 2022 - I think this would have been better, perhaps even excellent, if I had decanted.
October 16, 2022 - PNP in a restaurant. Should have decanted. Improved over dinner but not great. Purchased at winery and stored in temperature controlled cellar since purchase.
June 13, 2022 - One more excellent bottle similar to the last. Won’t get better but very nice right now
June 10, 2022 - Great showing for this.
April 23, 2022 - We are having too much wine tonight celebrating our Ukrainians friends who made it to our house in America. PnP and from Magnum. Color is deep garnet/purple. Nose: Cassis, plum and some sour funk. Palate: Plum, dark chocolate,cassis and baking spices. Flavors are deep and broad. This is really in a good place. More European than Napa which is a good thing. I am just happy to be with my Ukrainian friends after all my years working there and my grandmother is from Ukraine . God bless Ukraine.