2010 Opus One, Napa Valley, USA (750ml)

TASTING NOTES:

The 2010 Opus One is on another level and is a deep, concentrated, full-bodied, flawlessly balanced beauty. From a cooler vintage that saw significant heat spikes later in the year, it has incredible purity in its cassis and darker fruits as well as leafy tobacco, flowers, and background oak. With a great mid-palate, ripe, building tannins, and full-bodied richness on the palate, its a brilliant wine that has another two decades or more of prime drinking.

– Jeb Dunnuck, 98 pts.

A harvest lasting 30 days offered structure and tannins, deep and complex fruit with earthy nuances, still bursting with energy.

– Decanter, 97 pts.

Bright dark ruby. Initially reticent nose opened in the glass to reveal wonderfully complex scents of black- and redcurrant, blackberry, minerals, licorice, loam and tobacco leaf, plus a whiff of leather. Seamless, savory and classy on entry if a bit subdued, then delivers lovely restrained sweetness and a complicating wildness in the middle palate that still calls for more bottle aging. Old World in its classic dryness, this highly concentrated Opus One really shines on its vibrant, slowly building back end, where the broad, dusty tannins caress and saturate the palate and allow the fruits and minerals to build. A wine of outstanding depth, clarity, finesse of grain and class; it’s hard to imagine that this site could give more. Long-time winemaking director Michael Silacci noted that the estate did not strip leaves prior to the brutal August heat spike.

– Vinous, 97 pts.

One of the best ever from Opus, it shows beautiful blackcurrant Cabernet Sauvignon character. A powerful and poised wine with well-crafted tannins.

– James Suckling, 96 pts.

A glorious perfume of sweet charcoal, truffle, black currants and spice box soars from the glass of the saturated purple-colored 2010 Opus One. The gorgeous aromatics are followed by a beautifully knit, full-bodied red blend (84% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5.5% Merlot, 5.5% Cabernet Franc, 4% Petit Verdot and 1% Malbec) displaying lots of spicy black currant fruit, medium to full body, velvety tannins, and not a hard edge to be found. The texture, length and richness are all impressive.

– Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, 96 pts.

It was tae kwon do with Mother Nature in 2010,’ says Silacci. ‘We had everything thrown at usheat, rain. A challenging year, but we found out we could pick earlier than we thought.’ The wine is focused, with a cassis and cherry paste core supported by chalky minerality at first, changing to iron through the finish. Lots of savory flecks hang in the end, with the fruit easily keeping pace. Still quite young.

– Wine Spectator, 95 pts.