Vertical Opus One Tasting

Needless to say that this vertical tasting was highly anticipated by the Worcester Wine Tasters. But before going into specifics, let me explain the scoring system we used. As customary we scored the wines on a 20 point basis. However, to compare our scoring with James Laube’s (Wine Spectator) who uses a 100 point system, I just multiplied our 20 by 5 and showed our potential 100 scoring results. One more note, and that is that Laube’s scoring was reported in 1999 in his second edition of "California Wines". This probably means that he tasted the wines a year or so before, thus accounting for the difference in our scores and his.

The wines were bagged a week or so before the tasting and then before the tasting, the wines were numbered 1 thru 12 thus eliminating as much bias as possible. In general, we were somewhat disappointed with the wines and their posted prices. The scoring does show that it took several years for the winery to get their act together and improve on the initial offerings. There’s no hesitation in stating that the 90’s produced good wines with a couple of exception in 85 and 87. Yet, very few tasters were ready to run out and buy the current vintage.

The 1979 (the first offering) and the 1980 were long gone. I hade the opportunity to taste these vintages a few years ago and they were no better then. Last winter, I had the 92 and we enjoyed every drop and this time around , I felt that the wine was equally enticing. However, the biggest let down was the fact that age ability of these wines was a problem . Time will tell if Opus can be a wine of long life compared to the many Bordeaux that can live decades.

In conclusion, we will be having a vertical Silver Oak tasting in a few months and I’m ready to wager that this tasting will overshadow Opus easily…..So much for "garage or boutique " wines. Comments are always appreciated.

Merry Christmas