Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2012 Proprietary Red is a 625-case cuvée made from 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Cabernet Franc, and the rest Merlot and Petit Verdot. The wine displays blueberry and blackberry fruit, some violets, a hints of charcoal embers and graphite. It is pure, full-bodied, ripe and already dramatic and ostentatious.
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Wine Spectator
A dense, powerful expression of high-extract Cabernet, this unfolds with tiers of gravelly earth, plum, cherry, cedar and tobacco leaf. Most impressive on the finish, where the flavors fan out and gain depth. Very tight and compact now. Best to cellar. Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot. Best from 2017 through 2027.
OVID is an organically farmed, 15-acre vineyard perched on a secluded mountaintop at 1,400 ft. elevation in the western reaches of the Pritchard Hill geography of Napa Valley. Here, they farm rocky red, volcanic soils to capture a true sense of place and craft long lived wines composed of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot. They ferment only with native yeasts and bottle their wines without fining or filtering.
The Winemaker since 2006, Austin Peterson, combines his site-specific experience with a sense of experimentation, embracing a tension between classical and cutting-edge winemaking methods.
The name was inspired by the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso [Ovid], whose METAMORPHOSES, a poetic retelling of the Greek myths, celebrates themes of transformation and change.
Undoubtedly proving its merit over and over, Napa Valley is a now a leading force in the world of prestigious red wine regions. Though Cabernet Sauvignon dominates Napa Valley, other red varieties certainly thrive here. Important but often overlooked include Merlot and other Bordeaux varieties well-regarded on their own as well as for their blending capacities. Very old vine Zinfandel represents an important historical stronghold for the region and Pinot noir is produced in the cooler southern parts, close to the San Pablo Bay.
Perfectly situated running north to south, the valley acts as a corridor, pulling cool, moist air up from the San Pablo Bay in the evenings during the hot days of the growing season, which leads to even and slow grape ripening. Furthermore the valley claims over 100 soil variations including layers of volcanic, gravel, sand and silt—a combination excellent for world-class red wine production.