We want to force the vines to burrow down and become self-sufficient.” The estate currently encompasses 134 acres, with 104 in actual production.With Silacci choosing distinct vintages from each decade of production, I tasted seven Opus One wines, beginning with the first, 1979. Unlike some of our Napa Valley colleagues, however, half of our vineyards are not irrigated. Local characterSilacci insists his efforts go to “making sure the vines express the character of the site they grow in, which is in California, not France. With that stroke, Constellation was able to retain enough cachet to counter the wine media’s skepticism. So it raised some eyebrows - and calmed some fears - when she decided last year to keep her 50 percent stake in Opus One. There was speculation in the wine business that Baroness Philippine might not seek to be associated with a conglomerate such as Constellation. “I was hired to enhance the traditions of Opus One, which have always been to create a classic Bordeaux style and to reflect the two parents of the wine.” Without a Mondavi at Opus One, Constellation had an obvious marketing problem on its hands. Classic BordeauxThe Opus One board already had named David Pearson as chief executive officer and in 2001 appointed a well-regarded winemaker, Michael Silacci, previously at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars.“We’re in the midst of a 20-year development project,” Silacci, 52, said in an interview at New York’s Four Seasons Hotel. It operates in 60 countries, with sales of $4.09 billion in fiscal 2005. It assumed 50 percent ownership of Opus One and effectively forced the Mondavis out of their own winery.Constellation, based in Fairport, N.Y., is the largest wine company in the world, with more than 200 beverage brands, including Almaden, Paul Masson, Simi and Ravenswood in the U.S. Today Opus One produces 25,000 to 30,000 cases annually, with more than 90 percent of its grapes grown on its own estates.Current vintages sell for about $150 a bottle.In late 2004, after some of the Mondavi family’s ventures into multi-branding and investments in Chile and Italy foundered, Constellation Brands Inc. Baron Philippe died in 1988, with his daughter, Baroness Philippine, taking over the family business.Since its debut, Opus One has been acclaimed as a wine that brought American and French winemaking traditions into harmony.It encouraged California wineries to begin blending cabernet sauvignon with other grapes to achieve more complex, elegant wines. How do you market one of the most famous wines in the world when one of its equally famous founders has been bounced from the winery?This is the dilemma of Opus One, an icon of California wine that was founded in 1979 as a joint venture by Robert Mondavi of Napa Valley’s Robert Mondavi Winery and the equally illustrious Baron Philippe de Rothschild, owner of Bordeaux’s Chateau Mouton-Rothschild. John Mariani writes on wine for Bloomberg News.
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