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Decanter Fine Wine Experience at OVID Napa Valley hosted by Jonathan Cristaldi
Join Decanter for an extraordinary evening at OVID Napa Valley, one of Napa’s most celebrated boutique wineries. Perched high atop Pritchard Hill, OVID is known for its visionary approach to winemaking, producing wines of elegance, depth and rarity.
There are few winery destinations in the world as magical as OVID, perched atop Pritchard Hill 426m above Oakville on Napa’s eastern side.
From this vantage, the estate offers breathtaking views across the valley floor and nearly the entire span of the Mayacamas Mountains.
Rooted in the volcanic uplift soils, the estate was established 25 years ago by Dana Johnson and Mark Nelson, who had careers in technology and sciences.
In 2017, they sold their prized estate to the Duncan family of Silver Oak.
One thing has remained absolutely constant: OVID’s standing among Napa’s blue-chip estates is deliberately understated – a quiet reverence, coveted by collectors and exhilarating to those who chance upon it in their quest for America’s finest wines.
While its bottlings command the kind of prices suited to readers in the highest tax brackets, the estate projects a polish and sophistication that feels entirely at ease with its place among Napa’s elite.
Profound and perfect
Photo
(Image credit: Damion I. Hamilton)
Today, winemaker Austin Peterson is crafting wines of profound depth, structure, and complexity. Peterson is a thoughtful winemaker, equal parts philosopher and craftsman.
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He spends most of his time in the vineyard as opposed to the cellar. He is astutely aware of each and every vine and bares an innate sense of compassion for the plants – fully attuned to their needs.
The vineyard itself is just 6ha divided into 17 distinct blocks, home to Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Petit Verdot, including abundant plantings of Clone 4 Cabernet.
It is this clone, Peterson insists, that imparts the savoury character and polish evident in such vintages as the 2021 Ovid Proprietary Red – a wine I found to be totally enthralling, extraordinarily complex, and just remarkable in its depth, savoury quality and mineral freshness, worthy of a perfect 100-point score.
An exclusive dinner
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(Image credit: OVID)
On the evening of 1 November 2025, I’ll be hosting a multi-course wine pairing dinner at OVID.
It will be an intimate affair, with guests invited to tour the winery, perhaps the vineyard, and converse freely with Austin and myself throughout the night.
We’ll be pouring the 2021 Hexameter, 2021 Syrah, and the 2021 OVID Proprietary Red – three bottlings that showcase the mind-boggling terroir that is OVID.
Alongside these, we’ll debut the 2023 Experiment White and open a surprise older vintage from the library, a rare chance to see how these wines evolve with time.
This is the night you didn’t know you were dreaming of.
Jonathan Cristaldi is a wine writer and critic based in the San Francisco Bay Area. For more than a decade, his articles on wine, spirits and beer have appeared in a host of print and digital platforms, including Decanter, Food & Wine, Departures, The SOMM Journal, Tasting Panel Magazine, Liquor.com, Seven Fifty Daily, Los Angeles Magazine, Thrillist, Tasting Table and Time Out LA among others. When not writing about wine, Cristaldi works as a scriptwriter on film and documentary projects with award-winning commercial photographer and director Rachid Dahnoun.
