It was a year that started with a deluge, got blasted with heat during Labor Day weekend and then suffered the most devastating wildfires this area has seen just at the tail end of harvest. 2017 was, of course, another vintage story altogether and one that I will cover comprehensively in my full Napa report at the end of October. We were able to pick fairly regularly with an even flow in the cellar." The more 2016s I taste, the harder it is to fault this decadent, rich, blue and black-fruited vintage. "We had plenty of rain in the early part of the year," commented Opus One winemaker Michael Silacci, "followed by an early budbreak. 2016 is the vintage winemakers can't remember because it was so uneventful. The last of the "drought" years and a rather warm one at that, the resolute nature of these impeccably tended Oakville vines is apparent in the complex layers, beautiful freshness and rock-solid frame of this wine. Already previously reviewed as a barrel sample, the 2015 was a show-stopper from barrel and is equally impressive in bottle. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is wonderfully bright and crunchy, with bags of fresh black and red berries and a wonderfully plush, finely grained texture, finishing long and fragrant.Ĭall it a hat trick: Opus One knocks it out of the park with three excellent, if very different, takes on the the last string of vintages: 2015, 20. “So, when we took it out of barrel to prepare for bottling we added a few more components.” Medium to deep garnet-purple color, it bursts from the glass with beautiful violets, lavender, rose hip tea and chocolate-covered cherries scents over a core of crushed blackberries, black cherries, cassis and iron ore. This seems to nicely exemplify the new, fresher Napa Valley school."This wine was too much-too much like a caricature for me,” winemaker Michael Silacci confessed to me while tasting the 2015 Opus One together again recently. There is some sweetness but no obvious heaviness. It is extraordinarily broachable already, although is certainly best drink with food thanks to its light charge of neat tannins. This is a fresh, direct wine that developed some spiciness in the glass. The crimson is distinctly transparent and the nose, as well as transmitting freshness, is appetising and cedar. There is little suggestion of anything super ripe or heady. Freshness is the overriding impression - thank you, Pacific Ocean and your nightly visits, presumably. Somehow Silacci and Co have managed to produce a wine that does not taste as though it's the produce of a drought and heatwave and needs the microscope required to read the alcohol level on most Napa Valley wines to discern that it is indeed 15% alcohol. (The 2014 was about €225 a bottle en primeur.) To be offered on the Bordeaux Place on Monday 3 September. There were two periods of cooler weather one during flowering resulted in relatively small clusters and another in very early September just after the start of a protracted harvest that lasted until 8 October. Very warm, dry year, the warmest since 2008, with only a single February storm to fill dams between the end of 2014 and harvest. I think we can assume that Michael Silacci and his team were allowed to spare no expense. 1% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Cabernet Franc, 6% Merlot, 4% Petit Verdot, 2% Malbec vinified separately but with an average of 21 days' maceration and 18 months ageing in new French oak.
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