Mike has a Masters degree in Viticulture from UC Davis and Undergraduate degrees in Enology from UC Davis and the University of Bordeaux. The goal of Opus One is the production of an extraordinay wine and the person leading that charge today is the Winemaker and Viticulturist Michael Silacci. Vines are spur-pruned with new plantings going to Guyot. Overall vine density ranges between 5 vines per acre. The density of the re-plantings was five to six times higher than is normal for Napa but was pursued in order to produce smaller berries with resultant higher skin-to-juice-ratio which, in turn, would translate into more intense flavors and aromas. In 1995 the Q Block was replanted with low-yield, high-density, phylloxera-resistant rootstock. This was followed by the acquisition of the 50-acre (20.2-ha) River Parcel in 1983, the Ballestra Vineyard (49 acres (19.8 ha)) in 1984, and the To Kalon K Block (48 acre (18.4 ha)) in 2008. The first acquisition was the Q Block (35 acres (14.2 ha)) of the famed To Kalon Vineyard from the Robert Mondavi Winery in 1981. The estate currently owns and operates four vineyards, totaling 169 acres (68.4 ha), in the AVA. The climate and soils of Oakville, Opus One's home AVA, has been described in a previous post. The product introduced on the market represented a compromise between Sionneau's preference for a more elegant offering and Mondavi's hankering for a California-style red wine (Siler 2007). ![]() The joint venture released its 19 vintages simultaneously in 1984 under the winemaking stewardship of Timothy Mondavi and Lucien Sionneau, the Mouton winemaker. Robert Mondavi would provide the grapes and make the wine for the joint venture until it was able to meet its own needs and a search would be initiated to identify and procure property to house its operations. The agreement coming out of the meeting was for the formation of a fifty-fifty joint venture which would produce a single red wine with a proprietary name (Siler 2007). The Baron invited Robert Mondavi to meet at Mouton-Rothschild and in the course of the visit (1978) proposed a joint venture based on equal footing (a surprising proposal to Mondavi given the size and prestige of Mouton). ![]() I have visited the winery twice in a little over a year - once as a member of the UC Davis Wine Law Conference team that visited the facility on June 6th, 2010 and, secondly, on a personal guided tour organized by and led by Jim Nicolette, Guest Relations Coordinator - and this post presents my understanding of the winery operations based on onsite discussions as well as material gleaned from secondary sources.īased on the recommendation of his friend Harry Serlis, Robert Mondavi was the only producer who was considered by the Baron as a potential joint-venture partner (Julia Flynn Siler, The House of Mondavi, Penguin 2007). Opus One is an Oakville-based winery joint venture that grew out of Baron Philippe de Rothschild's (at that time the owner of Mouton-Rothschild) desire to partner with an American producer to make a distinctly American wine.
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