OVID Proprietary Red 2019
(Napa Valley, California) - [JD 100] [VM 99] [DM 98] [WS 95]

About the Winery:
OVID Napa Valley is a singular, dynamic and continuous experiment in terroir, nestled at an elevation of 1,500 feet on a secluded mountaintop in the western reaches of Pritchard Hill. Here, iron-rich volcanic soils, abundant sunshine and chaparral flora alchemize to reveal focused, long-lived wines that celebrate their source.

Our four estate wines are sourced from our organically farmed fifteen acre vineyard, planted in one-acre blocks with rootstock and clonal combinations of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Syrah. Each year, we also release a small selection of Experiment wines – never to be made again – yet foundational to understanding the soul and ethos of our estate wines.

About this vintage:

A truly spectacular vintage in Napa, 2019 began with a steady beat of rain that fell through the spring, recharging the reservoir in the soil and setting up the vines for a verdant start to the season. The warm spring days that followed gently raised the tender shoots and filled our canopies. Long and temperate sun-soaked days transitioned the seasons, packing the fruit with flavor and intensity. From mid-August to September, the last warmth of the summer beckoned harvest, much to our delight.

Starting on the first of October and finishing almost three weeks later, harvest was luxuriously long and proved to be classic in many respects. This shift in timing was the hallmark of a more traditional period and marked a departure from the previous few early vintages. Like the season, the wines, too, are classic – dense and rich with loads of color and expression.

The 2019 OVID Napa Valley red wine is certainly our best effort yet. Perfectly ripe mulberry, bay laurel, cassis and red tobacco leaf intermingle with boysenberry, fresh plum, cerise and iodine. Beautifully balanced, this taut and powerful vintage delivers mouthwatering freshness, intensity and poise that will continue to reveal its many delightful layers for decades to come.

Ratings & Reviews

100 Points - Jeb Dunnuck:
"Another perfect wine is the 2019 OVID, which is based on 68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 22% Cabernet Franc, 5% Merlot, and the rest Petit Verdot. Incredibly perfumed, nuanced, and complex, it has ripe black and blue fruits as well as notes of gravelly earth, tobacco, lead pencil shavings, and truffle. Insanely pure, full-bodied, and perfectly balanced, with fine tannins, this is another heavenly wine from this team and offers everything you could want from wine. Give it 4-5 years and enjoy over the following two decades." (Feb 2023)

99 Points - Vinous Media:
"The 2019 Ovid is positively stunning. Deep, translucent and absolutely thrilling in its balance, the 2019 captures all the best qualities of this site. The bottled 2019 is even better than the core blend barrel sample I tasted last year, likely the result of some tweaks at the end of élevage. The 2019 Ovid is without question one of the classiest wines of the year. (Drink between 2025-2039)" - AG (Jan 2022)

98 Points - Decanter Magazine:
"It is a skyscraper of a wine, with power, energy, grace, and a savoury profile that belies its place under the ample California sunshine. Impressively fresh, with dark, youthful brooding aromas of inky black fruits intermingling with savoury fresh thyme and sage, crushed minerals, blue agave, and smoky cedar. Full-bodied and tension-filled with expressive boysenberry and plum fruits, balanced by the saturating power and unctuousness of just-crushed fresh-picked blackberries. The towering structure is composed of long and angular fine-grained tannins. The finish reveals a torrent of refined brown baking spices and more cedar with the tightly wound, coiled-up energy of a Napa Cabernet that will impress for decades. Simply put, wow." - JC (Dec 2022)

95 Points - Wine Spectator:
"This is packed with a range of steeped black currant, black cherry and blackberry fruit flavors that work together to form a well-built core, while underlying alder, warm earth and sweet tobacco nuances emerge steadily through the finish. Powerfully rendered and well-detailed...Best from 2024 through 2038." - JM (Nov 2022)