Michael Silacci grew up on a dairy farm in the San Francisco Bay Area but didn’t discover his calling in life – wine – until he did a harvest in the Loire Valley in his mid-twenties. After jobs at Beaulieu and Stag’s Leap in California and at King Estate in Oregon, he joined Opus One in 2001. He’s been at this celebrated Napa Valley project ever since, refining the style and cementing Opus’s status as one of the New World’s most sought-after wines.

To read more about Michael have a look at the Opus One website. You can also follow him on Instagram at @opus_one_winemaker.

Don’t forget, Cork Talk is now available on Spotify as well as Apple Podcasts, where you can listen to this week’s episode, plus my back catalogue of interviews with some of the world’s most extraordinary wine figures.