Our Provenance Guarantee
Purchase with confidence. All of our wines are selectively sourced and thoroughly inspected for authenticity and signs of poor storage. Accepted bottles are preserved in our climate-controlled cellar until they reach your doorstep. We have no storefront and no walk-in traffic, so nothing is moved or handled between inspection and shipping.
The bottle you see photographed is the bottle you receive (or fundamentally identical when multiple bottles are listed), and our commitment to you is that it arrives as represented. If it doesn’t, we want to hear from you.
Ratings & Tasting Notes:
98 points — Decanter (November 2019)
The richness of the texture takes a step up with this vintage, and the wines are by this point starting to display consistency and clarity of purpose. Black cherry meets brambled hedgerow fruits, with a damson purée filling the mid-palate, deeply spiced with clove and anise. The tannins are clear and present but silky. 3% Malbec and 1% Petit Verdot complete the blend, with 40 days of skin contact, moderate summer temperatures and an unhurried harvest.
93 points — Vinous (Stephen Tanzer, May 2019)
Good bright medium red. Lively aromas of plum, redcurrant, tobacco and clove show a sexy oak component. Elegant and penetrating, displaying more red fruits, spices and flowers than minerals or black fruits. This stylish, gripping, classically dry midweight finishes with firm-edged tannins, a peppery nuance and a subtle lingering perfume.
93 points — Wine Spectator (October 2002)
An exquisite, complex, stylish wine, wearing a cloak of earthy, leathery tannins around flavours of mineral, currant, earth and blackberry. It gains intensity and shows its depth and concentration on a long, detailed finish. Flagged as collectible.
92 points — Wine Advocate (Neal Martin, February 2003)
A savoury, almost smoky nose that Martin finds more Bordeaux than Napa. Good acidity and balance on the palate, with well-knit tannins carrying blackberry, plum and damson. Very solid and well-structured, clearly better than the 1996, and much more subtle than he had expected.
Cult Wines International Notes:
Opus One was founded in 1979 as a joint venture between Robert Mondavi and Baron Philippe de Rothschild of Château Mouton Rothschild — a deliberate marriage of Napa Valley fruit and Bordeaux winemaking, and the first venture of its kind between a California estate and a First Growth. The partnership produced a single wine from the outset, drawing on estate parcels in the western reaches of the Oakville AVA, and released its inaugural 1979 vintage in 1984. More than four decades on, Opus One remains the reference point for the Napa Bordeaux blend and one of the few California labels traded internationally as a blue chip.
1999 was a long, temperate season in Oakville. Cool spring weather delayed bud break and bloom, spring rains cut flower counts and concentrated what fruit remained, and moderate summer temperatures allowed a steady, unhurried ripening through to a warm autumn. The wine spent 40 days on skins, and the blend is completed by 3% Malbec and 1% Petit Verdot. This is a mid-weight, classically proportioned Opus rather than a blockbuster, and that is its appeal: plum, redcurrant, black cherry and damson purée over tobacco, clove, anise, smoked meat and leather, with a savoury, almost smoky character that reads closer to Bordeaux than to Napa. The texture marks a clear step up for the label, and the tannins are firm-edged but silky, carrying a long, detailed, quietly perfumed finish. Mature and drinking now.
Bottle Size:
750 mL
Storage History:
Always stored on its side in a climate-controlled cellar.
Condition:
Please note: The bottle shown is the exact bottle being sold.
The label has a condensation stain as shown. Otherwise, outstanding condition.
