A successful pairing of Old and New World

SINGAPORE'S wine community is accustomed to welcoming European vintners on their annual visits to promote their new vintages, but a visit from a Napa Valley vintner is still a rarity. So when no less than the vice-president of Napa's famed Opus One, Laurent Delassus, made a brief stop in Singapore while on his Far East tour earlier this week, it was a refreshing change - he brought not so much a change of scene as a different point of view.

Opus One, as most wine lovers now know, is one of the icons of Napa Valley. It was a brilliant and high-profile piece of match-making (and wine-making) between the two most high-profile wineries - one from the Old World, Bordeaux, and the other from the New World, Napa. They came together to jointly own and produce a wine which would combine the rich fruitiness of Napa Valley with the discipline and restraint of Bordeaux.

Baron Philippe de Rothschild of Château Mouton Rothschild in Bordeaux - the Château whose motto is "First I am, Second I was, Mouton never changes" - and Robert Mondavi, iconic pioneer of Napa Valley who almost single-handedly put Napa on the world map, joined forces to produce a Napa Valley wine, combining wine-making skills from the Old World, and fruit from the New World. Thus was born Opus One in 1979, with fruit supplied from Robert Mondavi's prime vineyards in To-Kalon in Napa, combined with the winemaking by his son, Michael.