![]() ![]() ![]() The grade A fruit then fed gently by gravity into the de-stemmer where the fruit is gently washed before they are fed into the raised, temperature-controlled stainless-steel fermentation tanks.Įach tank is dedicated to a single lot of grapes and used only once during each years harvest. At the winery the grapes are painstakingly sorted by hand, any that do not meet stringent standards discarded. The Opus One vines of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Merlot and Malbec grape varietals blessed by Mother Nature to produce abundant and bounteous fruit.Ĭarefully monitored, just as they reached their perfect ripeness and were bursting with their most intense and lively flavors and aromas the grapes were hand-harvested, packed lightly and transported with care so as to protect the fruit. Then came plentiful sunshine and a summer of moderate temperatures. The growing season for this 2012 vintage was text-book perfect a warm and relatively dry winter was followed by heavy rains in March providing the vines with the water they needed. This dense planting encourages the vines to produce berries that are more compact, with an all-important high skin to juice ratio. It starts at the vineyard where Opus One plant their vines much more densely than is normal in the Napa Valley. Only in this way can they produce this phenomenal, spectacular wine. Traditional and modern viticultural and winemaking practices are combined no shortcuts are ever taken, there is no room for compromise everything must be done precisely and with extraordinary care. From ice wines in the northern states, to sparkling wines, aromatized wines, fortified wines, reds, whites, rosés and more, the United States has endless surprises in store for lovers of New World wines.Lovingly created at a vineyard where everything has a singular purpose, to create this extraordinary wine, world acclaimed Opus One wine is produced with great attention to detail. However, American wine does not begin and end with California, and due to the vast size of the country and the incredible range of terrains and climates found within the United States, there is probably no other country on earth which produces such a massive diversity of wines. As such, it comes as little surprise that today more than eighty-nine percent of United States wines are grown in the valleys and on the mountainsides of California, where arguably some of the finest produce in the world is found. Not even in the Old World are there such fertile valleys, made ideal for vine cultivation by the blazing sunshine, long, hot summers and oceanic breezes. The first European settlers to consider growing grapevines in the United States must have been delighted when they discovered the now famous wine regions within California, Oregon and elsewhere. These two grape varietals also produced characterful wines on the coastal regions of South Africa this year. Similar claims are being made across the Chilean wine regions, where Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon had an especially good year. Also enjoying a fantastic year for weather were wineries across Argentina and Chile, with the Mendoza region claiming that 2012 will be one of their best vintages of the past decade. The southern hemisphere has seen ideal climatic conditions in most of the key wine producing countries, and Australia and New Zealand particularly had a superb year, in particular with the Bordeaux varietal grapes that grow there and which love the humidity these countries received plenty of. French wineries are claiming, though, that this could well turn out to be advantageous, as the slow ripening will allow the resulting wines to express more flavour and features of the terroir they are grown in. However, 2012 has been something of a late year for France, due to unpredictable weather throughout the summer, and the grapes were ripening considerably later than they did in 2011 (which was, admittedly, an exceptionally early year). While it may be a little too early to speak of the wines being made in the northern hemisphere, European and North American wineries have already begun reporting that their harvesting season has been generally very good, and are predicting to continue with the kind of successes they saw in 2011. ![]() 2012 has, so far been a positive year for wineries around the world. ![]()
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