Opus One - Overture N.V.

TAST­ING NOTES FROM THE CURATOR

Dry and mild­ly acidic, this Napa Val­ley gem comes in a deep blood red col­or, sug­gest­ing at its bold taste.

Flo­ral and sweet on the nose, the Opus One Over­ture gives notes of oak, vanil­la, and choco­late, with hints of dark berries and smoke.

It has a beau­ti­ful, ele­gant and vel­vety tex­ture on the palate, almost silky. This Bor­deaux grape blend deserves a place on your shelf, no doubt.

PREPA­RA­TION AND PAIRINGS

This Cal­i­for­nia wine shines when paired with cheeses like mun­ster, smoked gou­da, ched­dar, or manchego.

But the tan­nins in this wine smooth out beau­ti­ful­ly with red meats. We sug­gest a sump­tu­ous slow roast spiced lamb shoul­der. The fat­ti­ness of the meat, com­bined with the spices used for roast­ing, plus the rich­ness of your Opus One Over­ture? That is a feast fit for roy­al­ty, right on your din­ner table.

BREAK­ING BARRIERS

Opus One is a sin­gle wine, sourced from the estate vine­yards of Oakville. The first pre­mi­um Cal­i­for­nia wine to be sold in Europe, it’s also one of the orig­i­nal ​“Cult Caber­nets” that gained a size­able fol­low­ing. To this day, it remains the most expen­sive Caber­net Sauvi­gnon-dom­i­nant wine pro­duced in the Napa Valley.

A star­ry col­lab­o­ra­tion in the 1970’s between Baron Philippe de Roth­schild and Robert Mon­davi, two high­ly respect­ed fig­ures from Bor­deaux and the Napa Val­ley, the Opus One was first released in 1979. It gained par­tic­u­lar atten­tion, though, when a sin­gu­lar case of it sold for $24,000 in 1981, at the First Napa Val­ley Auc­tion. It was released for the pub­lic mar­ket in 1984.

True to Bor­deaux tra­di­tions, they released a sec­ond wine — the Opus One Over­ture, in 1993.

Storage Instructions

Store unopened red wines in a cool, dry, and dark place safe from con­stant vibra­tion. Keep your bot­tle hor­i­zon­tal in a wine rack or cel­lar to retain the moist­ness of the cork. The ide­al tem­per­a­ture for stor­age is between 16 to 18°C. Once opened, a bot­tle will be good for 3 to 5 days stand­ing upright in the refrigerator.