Silver Oak
Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
Napa Valley, California, USA
‘81 vintage - still showing well. Needed a double decent and a couple hours to fully open up and show all the beautiful sour cherries, anise, & dried fruit.
‘81 vintage - still showing well. Needed a double decent and a couple hours to fully open up and show all the beautiful sour cherries, anise, & dried fruit.
Feb 17th, 2020
The second bottle from 1981 to kick off my 40th birthday week. The capsule freely spun and there was no sign of seepage. I did not have a Durand so I used a traditional wine key, albeit very carefully. Despite my best efforts, the cork was extracted in two pieces but I was able to get it all out! The cork itself was saturated about 3/4 of its length. Due to the large amount of sediment, I decided to decant and I believe this wine needed it. The color was a dark garnet with burnt orange rim. On the nose, tertiary characteristics were overwhelmingly dominant with olives, old leather automobile interior (it seriously reminded me of my great uncle’s ’63 Lincoln Continental), tobacco, earth, mushrooms, and black fruits…just barley perceptible at this point. On the palate, the fruit was a bit more evident but the olive, earth and tobacco notes were still predominate. Tannins at this point were fully integrated and, thankfully, the acid was quite high which kept this interesting at the end of this bottle’s life. This sat opened for several hours and did benefit some from air but I’m unsure if more patience would have coaxed something better from it. In the end, this bottle was a rather grumpy, curmudgeon of a wine and was not as charming as the 1981 Beringer Knights Valley opened alongside. One got the sense that this is the sort of bottle that people make excuses for because it’s old and therefor we should give it a pass when in fact, maybe it was merely a decent wine to begin with. FWIW, I acquired this wine from a private collection; provenance was excellent.
The second bottle from 1981 to kick off my 40th birthday week. The capsule freely spun and there was no sign of seepage. I did not have a Durand so I used a traditional wine key, albeit very carefully. Despite my best efforts, the cork was extracted in two pieces but I was able to get it all out! The cork itself was saturated about 3/4 of its length. Due to the large amount of sediment, I decided to decant and I believe this wine needed it. The color was a dark garnet with burnt orange rim. On the nose, tertiary characteristics were overwhelmingly dominant with olives, old leather automobile interior (it seriously reminded me of my great uncle’s ’63 Lincoln Continental), tobacco, earth, mushrooms, and black fruits…just barley perceptible at this point. On the palate, the fruit was a bit more evident but the olive, earth and tobacco notes were still predominate. Tannins at this point were fully integrated and, thankfully, the acid was quite high which kept this interesting at the end of this bottle’s life. This sat opened for several hours and did benefit some from air but I’m unsure if more patience would have coaxed something better from it. In the end, this bottle was a rather grumpy, curmudgeon of a wine and was not as charming as the 1981 Beringer Knights Valley opened alongside. One got the sense that this is the sort of bottle that people make excuses for because it’s old and therefor we should give it a pass when in fact, maybe it was merely a decent wine to begin with. FWIW, I acquired this wine from a private collection; provenance was excellent.
May 4th, 2021Oh yeah...fruit and tannins still in balance
Oh yeah...fruit and tannins still in balance
Aug 27th, 2014