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.
Tasting Notes:
100 points — Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW
Deep garnet-purple in colour, it needs a little swirling to coax out fragrant notes of lavender oil, red loam, pencil shavings and garrigue, leading to a core of kirsch, wild blueberries and redcurrants with a touch of iron ore. The full-bodied palate has an impactful, rock-solid backbone of firm, grainy tannins and a refreshing line countering the tightly wound red fruit and savoury layers, finishing long and minerally.
98 points — James Suckling
Effusive blueberry and rose petal aromas, then juicy, appetising black and red berries in this multilayered blend based on Cabernet Franc.
98 points — Decanter
Cult Wines International Notes:
Ovid was founded on Pritchard Hill in 2000 by Mark Nelson and Dana Johnson, and named for the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso, author of the Metamorphoses. The 75-acre property sits at around 1,350 feet on iron-rich volcanic soil, and was virgin land until David Abreu planted the original fifteen acres. A further eighteen acres went in during 2022, bringing the vineyard to thirty-three acres, farmed organically and planted principally to Bordeaux varieties. The Duncan family, owners of Silver Oak and Twomey, acquired the estate in 2017 and kept its spirit of experimentation intact under winemaker Austin Peterson. Blends here are never planned in advance: the team tastes through the individual lots after harvest, looks for common themes and compelling ideas, then follows each pathway to see where it leads.
The name is a literary joke with real substance behind it. Ovid wrote the Metamorphoses in dactylic hexameter, the six-beat line of classical epic, and Hexameter is the wine that departs from the Cabernet Sauvignon of the flagship to let Cabernet Franc lead. The 2021 is roughly half Cabernet Franc with a third Cabernet Sauvignon and the balance Merlot, grown on Hambright soils, harvested between 17 September and 5 October and aged twenty months in French oak at 14.8 percent alcohol.
2021 was the second drought year in California, and a cool February and March pushed budbreak back to its historical timing. Ample sunlight and a temperate summer gave ideal, even ripening. Expect black cherry, plum, kirsch, wild blueberry and redcurrant with lavender, sage, violet, orange rind, crushed bay leaf, pencil shavings and garrigue. Broad and captivating, powerful yet graceful, with burnished, grainy tannins and a long, mineral finish.
Bottle Size:
750 mL
Storage History:
Always stored properly in a climate-controlled cellar.
Condition:
Perfect
