1996 | Opus One | Napa Valley

Description

Red Wine: 1996 | Opus One | Napa Valley

Revealing delicate notes of violets and mint on the nose, the wine displays intense notes of blackberry, chocolate, and roasted coffee. Its smooth texture and deep, velvety flavours are well-supported by a firm structure and a refined mid-palate.

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Producer: Opus One

Ratings: WA | 94 D | 93

Vintage: 1996

Size: 750ml

ABV: 13.9%

Varietal: Bordeaux Blend Red

Country/Region: United States, Napa Valley

Revealing delicate notes of violets and mint on the nose, the wine displays intense notes of blackberry, chocolate, and roasted coffee. Its smooth texture and deep, velvety flavours are well-supported by a firm structure and a refined mid-palate.

Reviews:

• Wine Advocate: This is one of the finest Opus Ones to date, offering a dark ruby/purple color, as well as a striking, intense bouquet of sweet licorice intermixed with blackberries, cassis, plums, and saddle leather. This seamless, full-bodied wine is more velvety-textured, opulent, and succulent than past vintages. The mid-palate is expansive and chewy. The long finish is filled with glycerin, ripe fruit, and sweet tannin. Drink this impressive, user-friendly yet richly concentrated effort over the next 15 years.

• Decanter: The 1996 Opus One reveals an intense and expressive bouquet of black cherries, plums, cassis and spices; the prelude to a rich, textural and quite densely extracted palate impression with some firm tannins on the back end. By the mid-1990s, Opus One saw considerably longer macerations than was the case in the 1980s, and than is the case today, so their tannic profiles tend to be rather more monolithic. While the 1996 blend includes Malbec, which first became a component of Opus One in 1994, it is also the last Opus One not to include any Petit Verdot, a grape that has been part of the blend ever since 1997.

Producer Information

Opus One is one of the world’s most famous wines, and among the most expensive produced in the Napa Valley.. Although it is primarily Cabernet Sauvignon, Opus One makes use of Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec in smaller percentages. The wine was initially established as a partnership between two of the biggest names in Bordeaux and Napa Valley: Baron Philippe de Rothschild of Chteau Mouton Rothschild and Robert Mondavi. Opus One was the first premium California wine sold in Europe, and is one of the original “Cult Cabernets”, along with the likes of Harlan Estate and Screaming Eagle. The collaboration was conceived in the 1970s and then first realised in 1979, when the first vintage of Opus One was created. It was released to the public in 1984, but had already attracted considerable attention, as a single case of the wine had sold for $24,000 at the first Napa Valley Wine Auction in 1981. Opus One’s brand continued to grow considerably through the 1990s, particularly in markets outside of the United States, and in 2004, when Robert Mondavi Winery was acquired by Constellation Brands, Opus One also became part-owned by the multi-national company.