With Hart at Crystal Wine tasting.

Opus One changed Overture from a multi-vintage blend to a vintage-dated wine starting with the 2021 vintage.

In the glass: this was deep, inky purple. Glass staining.

On the nose: intensely aromatic bouquet of sweet blackcurrant, sweet gentle oak, just super pleasurable. Distinct vanilla crème. Ripe. I know this sounds like a generic Napa cab descriptor, but this was very beautiful. One of the funny trade offs in Napa cab second wines: you get to enjoy less obnoxious oak use, but you also end up with less complexity and abit more of a fruit bomb.

On the palate: intense concentration of fruits, but surprisingly fresh and elegant on the palate. Almost mid bodied. Super fine tannins. Very fresh almost minty. Sweet vanilla on exhale.

BUT HOLY SHIT. Why is there SO MUCH residual sugar in the wine??? I was careful to distinguish sweetness coming from that amazing aromatics and focused on the residual sugar. Yep – this is sugar. I mean look this isn’t cloying like a Demi sec or something, but man, this was a very sweet dry wine. I still enjoyed it, but I prefer a fair bit less RS.