Opus One 2007 750ml

USA : CALIFORNIA : NAPA VALLEY

Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Malbec

FULL-BODIED, CASSIS, LICORICE, CEDAR, FOREST FLOOR, NEW OAK

Seventy-nine percent Cabernet Sauvignon, with Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and a single percent of Malbec filling out the frame — then twenty days on skins and nineteen months in new French oak. The fruit was picked selectively, most of it at night, after a September heat spell brought rain and the threat of frost to a season that had been picture perfect through August.

This is the vintage where the estate turned its corner. Jeff Leve, who had held the 1996 as Opus One's high-water mark for years, called the 2007 a perfect ringer for a Bordeaux blind tasting — which is the argument Rothschild and Mondavi shook hands on in 1979. Wine Advocate 95 pts. Wine Spectator 94 pts.

Nineteen years on, it sits at peak and still asks for patience. Give it ninety minutes off the sediment, serve it cellar-cool at 60°F, and the cedar and tobacco fold back into cassis over the course of an evening.

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