This is the first vintage with no cold soaking or extended macerations of the Ovid wines. Winemaker Austin Peterson explains that all the work they’ve done with their Experiment bottlings and in the vineyards is to arrive at a place where the winemaking is hands-off. Clusters are sorted by hand and go through an optical sorter, which they started using in 2015. Gravity flow brings the fruit to tanks, and after fermentation, the free-run juice is bled into stainless steel before going into barrel. Racking is kept to a minimum, and the wine undergoes malolactic fermentation in barrel. Beginning in January after harvest, Peterson begins culling together the final blend to marry harmoniously in oak. After 22 months in 30% new French oak, this is a compact, tight, and gorgeously structured Cabernet Franc blend. With some aeration, an intricate tapestry of aromas emerges in details of ripe red berry fruits, toffee, and cedar. Full-bodied, youthful, and tightly knit with dark berried fruits, sagebrush and wild herbal spices, fragrant rose petals, and searing acid tension framed by building tannins that are sappy in youth and will unwind in a multi-dimensional fracturing that is sure to release more fireworks. Just wait.

Boasting bold, assertive aromas of red cherries and black tea, plus hints of black olives and mocha, the Cabernet Franc-based 2019 Hexameter—56% Cabernet Franc, 43% Cabernet Sauvignon, 1% Merlot—is medium to full-bodied and rather open-knit in feel. The texture is more coarse velvet than plush, but there's ample complexity and length, plus a decade or more of cellaring potential.