Now, with a facility in which to make the wine and a vineyard of its own, Opus is no longer a wine looking for a home-it’s a real winery. However, the grace and complexity of Opus One have always made it drinkable when young, unlike many of the reserves, and it has turned out to have the staying power for cellaring too. The wine, always made at Mondavi by winemakers from both partners in the 50-50 project, was rarely as powerful as some “reserve” wines of other wineries. In the early years, because the wine was not tied to a specific vineyard site, the winemakers blended grapes from various regions to make a wine that hewed to an unwavering style. Recently a Bay Area wine shop hung out a joking sign that read, “Opus One, regularly $63, now $62.99.” Today, though, it’s selling all of its production (12,000 cases of the 1988) without much trouble, and you rarely find it discounted much below $58. A few years back it was moving so slowly it was sold to discount warehouses, which marketed it at $35.99. In the beginning Opus One did have to weather some market resistance. The market didn’t go for it, though, and a year later he meekly released his 1986 at $50. For example, after years of making headlines with his Stag’s Leap Cask 23 Cabernet Sauvignon, Warren Winiarksi put a $75 price tag on the 1985 vintage. The high price made Opus One stand out, and it gained a cachet few California wines have ever been able to attain. At the time it was the most expensive California wine available (though it no longer is). It appears that the price, which at first seemed to have been put arbitrarily high, was a brilliant marketing move. The initial pricing of the first Opus One-at $50-was not shocking to those who realized that this price was partly set to gain attention. Of course, with the prestigious names of Mondavi and Rothschild behind it, no one had seriously expected the wine would be cheap. If anything was ever criticized, it was the price.
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