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, it’s a brilliant wine that has another two decades or more of prime drinking.
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.
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. This estate has been making great Cabernet-based wines for nearly a decade ... and this is another one. Drink it over the next 20+ years.
One of the best ever from Opus, it shows beautiful blackcurrant cabernet sauvignon character. A powerful and poised wine with well-crafted tannins. Needs about four years to soften.
"It was tae kwon do with mother nature in 2010," says Silacci. "We had everything thrown at us—heat, 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. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec.—Non-blind Opus One vertical (September 2019). Best from 2022 through 2038. 26,000 cases made.
Very much a young wine in its primary stage, this is silky and powerful and tasted excellent during this vertical, despite 2010 being an extremely difficult vintage for winemaker Michael Silacci. The year got off to a cool start, followed by a heatwave - the grapes at Opus escaped the shrivelling that much of Napa saw because of leaf cover. There are still plenty of signposts towards a hot summer - olive paste, rosemary, garrigue and liquorie notes, gorgeous ground coffee bean edging, and an excellent layer of freshness that picks things up on the finish and stops it being overly powerful. I like years in Napa that have a little fault in them - too much perfection with the natural generosity of Napa can make for an overly powerful wine, and I celebrate the nuances here. 1% Malbec, 4% Petit Verdot completes the blend. 19 days skin contact.
TWI
95pts
The Wine Independent
The 2010 Opus One is very deep garnet in color. The nose is very fruity and youthful, featuring notes of freshly crushed black cherries, black raspberries, and boysenberries, plus wafts of wild sage, dusty soil, and unsmoked cigars. The full-bodied palate is taut and youthful, with muscular black fruits and loads of savory accents, finishing long and mineral-laced.
Pre-arrival
Case Only
