100pts Decanter

Each year, the blend of Ovid wines varies depending on the vintage. Winemaker Austin Peterson prefers not to pre-plan the blend, instead approaching each vintage with a fresh perspective. Often, the wine needs more Cabernet Sauvignon to qualify as a Napa Valley varietal wine. The vineyard features an abundance of Clone 4, planted across four of its 17 blocks within the 6ha site. This clone contributes a distinctive savoury character and polish, evident in the 2021 vintage with its flinty minerals, green tobacco, and mulberry fruit, reminiscent of Napa Cabernets from the 1970s. Comprising 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc, 6% Merlot, and 4% Petit Verdot, the wine is aged 20 months in 66% new French oak. It is full-bodied with ripe, chewy tannins that assert themselves on entry but gradually soften, revealing a beautifully layered wine with mineral-infused mulberry fruit and green tobacco aromas. The wine exhibits notable tension, supported by a pH level 3.78, ensuring vibrancy and freshness. It is a pedigreed wine characterised by balance, intensity, and complexity. 

100pts Jeb Dunnuck

Moving to the 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon, it's 79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc, and the balanced 7% Merlot and 4% Petit Verdot. Insanely pure, it offers kaleidoscope-like aromatics of black and blue fruits, spring flowers, chocolate, burning embers, and bouquet garni. Full-bodied on the palate, it doesn't get any better, and it's concentrated, has building tannins, and a monster of a finish. Offering more generosity and opulence than just about every other wine in the vintage, this is a killer bottle of wine! It will make your eyes roll back in your head today, yet will ideally be given 4-5 years of bottle age and will evolve gracefully over the following two decades. Bravo!

99pts Lisa Perrotti-Brown

Deep garnet-purple colored, it’s a touch shy to begin at this youthful stage, needing considerable shaking to wake up notes of ripe black currants and red currants, giving way to hints of bay leaves, pencil lead, and forest floor. Full-bodied, the palate is jaw-droppingly stacked with layer upon layer of black fruits and earthy/savory nuances, supported by very firm, beautifully ripe tannins and bold freshness, finishing long with a spectacular mineral firework display. This is clearly one of Ovid’s finest vintages and a keeper, for sure, with 25+ years of cellaring potential.

98pts James Suckling

The purity of fruit and class to this wine is really impressive, with roses, lavender. violets and blackcurrants and a sweet lift. Medium- to full-bodied with very long and racy tannins. They go from the front of your palate to the back. This is so beautiful and graceful yet structured. Give this at least four to five years.

97pts Vinous

The 2021 Ovid is another exceptional wine in this range. Dark shades of Cabernet Sauvignon fruit open first, followed by hints of leather, lavender, spice, tobacco and incense that lend complexity. Deep and structured, with notably finessed tannins for a young mountain wine, the 2021 delivers the goods. This is quite impressive in the early going, especially with time in the glass. 

Winemaker Notes

The 2021 vintage continued the second year of drought in the western United States, and OVID was no exception. A cool February and March pushed budbreak back to historical normal with buds emerging in late March. Temperate weather gave way to a little bit of warmth during bloom, setting clusters that were long and loose – exemplary of ideal bunches. Ample sunlight and a temperate summer coaxed the grapes along and provided ideal ripening weather.

As a result of the superb weather, harvest started a bit early with the first pick in mid-September. We slowly made our way through the estate, enjoying our time in the vines and collecting fruit from each block at its zenith of expression. Our last pick wrapped at the end of the first week of October. This luxurious time and length can be felt in these expansive wines.

Loquacious in its approach, the 2021 OVID Napa Valley offers notes of fresh mulberry, kola nut, blackberry, black cherry, flint and bay laurel that are striking in purity. Broad and enveloping, this wine delivers undeniably delicious power and will continue to tell its vivid, seamless story for decades to come.