Opaque Petit Verdot 2016
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After aging in French and American barrels for 24 months, this wine reveals ripe flavors of black plum and currant with accents of vanilla and dark chocolate. Structured tannins provide texture and depth with a lengthy finish.
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Exotic wood aromas meet with tightly wound blackberry and dried herbs on the nose of this bottling. The smooth palate is wrapped in polished tannins, allowing fairly delicate flavors of lavender, herb and boysenberry cream to shine.
Other Vintages
2018-
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Enthusiast
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Enthusiast
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Opaque means impenetrable to light and refers to the dark, inky, impenetrable color of their family’s award-winning wines. Their mission is to reveal the deep, dark, and bold flavors in every bottle.
The Riboli Family has made a steadfast commitment to producing the highest quality grapes from estate vineyards in two of the most prestigious regions along California’s central coast: Monterey and Paso Robles. Opaque Wines sourced from Paso Robles estate vineyards are meticulously farmed to yield grapes with concentrated flavors and aromas and our winemaking techniques create unique wines of the highest quality and character. They pay special attention to the cultivation of their vineyards, confident you’ll taste the fruits of their passion in the complexity of their wines.
One of the original Bordeaux varieties, Petit Verdot has a bold structure, color and aromas, which allow it to make a significant difference in Bordeaux Blends—even in modest amounts. While it isn’t planted in Bordeaux in great quantities anymore, its virtues are increasingly identified elsewhere. Somm Secret—Producing phenomenal single-varietal wines in hot and dry locations in the New World, Petit Verdot also finds a happy home in parts of Spain as well as in in Portugal’s Alentejo where it gracefully blends with the regions' indigenous varieties.
Paso Robles has made a name for itself as a source of supple, powerful, fruit-driven Central Coast wines. But with eleven smaller sub-AVAs, there is actually quite a bit of diversity to be found in this inland portion of California’s Central Coast.
Just east over the Santa Lucia Mountains from the chilly Pacific Ocean, lie the coolest in the region: Adelaida, Templeton Gap and (Paso Robles) Willow Creek Districts, as well as York Mountain AVA and Santa Margarita Ranch. These all experience more ocean fog, wind and precipitation compared to the rest of the Paso sub-appellations. The San Miguel, (Paso Robles) Estrella, (Paso Robles) Geneso, (Paso Robles) Highlands, El Pomar and Creston Districts, along with San Juan Creek, are the hotter, more western appellations of the greater Paso Robles AVA.
This is mostly red wine country, with Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel standing out as the star performers. Other popular varieties include Merlot, Petite Sirah, Petit Verdot, Syrah, Grenache and Rhône blends, both red and white. There is a fairly uniform tendency here towards wines that are unapologetically bold and opulently fruit-driven, albeit with a surprising amount of acidity thanks to the region’s chilly nighttime temperatures.