Producer profile: Silver Oak, California Elin McCoy
This family-owned California winery is dedicated to Cabernet Sauvignon, and has developed a steadfast commitment to sustainability. Elin McCoy pays a visit, discovering the estate’s history and tasting verticals of its Napa Valley and Alexander Valley win
At Silver Oak’s sleek new environmentally friendly and energy-efficient winery in Sonoma, floor-to-ceiling windows frame long views of green vineyards and rolling mountains. Looking out, I breathe in the filtered air and reflect on the virtues of sustainable building – the salvaged redwood siding from old wine tanks, the roof’s solar panels, the recycled water, the huge basalt rock in the circular wine library.
This modern, eco-conscious, barn-like Alexander Valley winery, which opened in 2018, is a step into the future for Silver Oak, a nearly 50-year-old California wine name dedicated to Cabernet Sauvignon, but with a surprising twist.
For decades, Silver Oak has been doing something unusual in northern California: making two parallel high-end Cabernets, one from Sonoma and one from Napa, released under the same brand name. The bottle shapes differ slightly, but the design of both labels features an oak tree and the winery’s signature wooden water tower.
What’s more, the dual Cabernet identity was woven into Silver Oak from its beginning in the early 1970s, by founders Justin Meyer and Raymond Duncan.
The two wineries are about an hour’s drive from one another, but just how much do the wines differ?
Keen to understand the backstory of Silver Oak, compare the two cuvées, and discover where the future lies for this historic brand beloved by media mogul Oprah Winfrey and LA Lakers basketballer LeBron James, I head north from Healdsburg to taste a decade’s worth of Cabernet.
Though the wines are among California’s most popular premium reds, they haven’t always wowed the critics. Some refer to them as ‘dad’ Cabernets that appeal to boomers. And yet they’re among the most requested wines at US restaurants – especially steakhouses – and have passionate fans who turn up at the winery’s annual release parties in vehicles that range from Harley Davidsons through to stretch limos.
A look back
As current CEO David Duncan, son of the founder, shows off all the winery’s green features, he also talks history.
The story begins in the Napa Valley, a hotbed of winery start-ups in the 1970s as would-be vintners bought up vineyard land and began resurrecting historic estates abandoned during Prohibition.
One of the few to survive that era was the wine- and brandy-producing estate of religious order the Christian Brothers, where Justin Meyer was a winemaking member of the community. He left the order in 1972 and joined forces with Colorado oil entrepreneur Raymond Duncan, the finance guy. He’d
invested in an Alexander Valley vineyard in 1970 and planned to buy a Napa property and create an equal partnership with Meyer if he’d sign on as winemaker.
Today the idea of focusing solely on Cabernet Sauvignon seems a no-brainer, but back then it was a radical idea – even in Napa, where vintners produced everything from Riesling to Zinfandel.
When released, the duo’s first vintage, from mostly Alexander Valley grapes, sold for $6 a bottle – the first review called it ‘overpriced’. David, whose father died in 2015, says that only 17 bottles are left. The winery’s favourite saying is: ‘Life is a Cabernet.’
At the same time they began planting a vineyard at the Napa property, producing a Napa Cab in 1979, as well as a single-vineyard version that they later discontinued.
‘ When released, the first vintage, from mostly Alexander Valley grapes, sold for $ 6 a bottle – the first review called it “overpriced”’
Acclaim came quickly, with critics divided over which Cabernet was best, and success funded a new winery in Napa in 1982. For the 1997 vintage release, 100 people slept at the winery the night before to ensure they could secure a bottle.
And so things continued until 2001,
when Meyer sold his share to Raymond Duncan. Son David took over in 2002, with a plan to vastly expand production. Some critics who were fans of the wines in the 1980s and 1990s, notably Robert Parker, claimed the quality of the wines suffered. David faced serious 21st-century challenges: a massive fire at the Napa Valley winery that destroyed nearly $2m worth of wine; climate change; and scaling up without alienating existing customers.
His response has been to buy more vineyard land and invest in grape research and technology. He also bought a cooperage, courted professional sports institutions like the San Francisco Giants baseball team, and above all, he has built a couple of the greenest wineries in California.
Style & evolution
In its history, which is long by Californian standards, Silver Oak has had only three winemakers. Meyer set the basic style: rich, ripe, packed with intense, fleshy, upfront fruit and a smooth texture. The hallmark was ageing the wines in American oak, which added notes of vanilla, sweet spices and dill.
‘We always wanted to make a completely American wine,’ David says. ‘A Bordeaux style wasn’t our goal.’
The smoothness, he explains, comes from blending before the wines are put in barrel. An extra year in the bottle before release ensures they’ll be ready to drink.
I tasted 21 recent wines, starting with the 2005 vintage (11 from Alexander Valley and 10 from Napa) along with two wines from 1986, in a quiet tasting room adjacent to Silver Oak’s huge hospitality centre, with spectacular views of distant hills. A month later, in October 2019, the destructive Kincade fire left those hillsides charred, but didn’t damage the winery or vineyards.
There are more differences in winemaking between the two cuvées than you might expect. The Alexander Valley is aged in 50% new barrels and 50% used, and has a higher percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon. For the Napa Valley, the barrel regime is 100% new oak (though recent vintages have cut back slightly), and is about 80% Cabernet with a good dollop of Merlot, plus some Cabernet Franc and Petit
Verdot. Both wines see 24 months’ oak ageing.
The other difference is terroir. The grapes for each come from a variety of sources, not just estate vineyards. I’ve often preferred the Alexander Valley, partly because it uses less new oak, but also because of Alexander Valley’s typical dried-herb and tobacco character, and its lifted structure compared to Napa’s concentration, power and riper fruit.
But the styles haven’t remained static.
David points out: ‘Our vineyard sources have changed, our barrels have changed, our technology has changed, and now we have better grapes and more control.’ That shows in the quality of the past several vintages.
Future direction
Since 2015, Silver Oak has fully owned the cooperage in Missouri with which it has been working for more than a decade. As David says: ‘There’s a terroir to wood, too.’ He’s locked in a better grape supply by acquiring some 100ha of vineyards, selling off those on the valley floor. Now 75% of their wine comes from their own grapes – it used to be 25%.
The Alexander Valley winery is built on the 46ha he bought in 2012. Winemaker Daniel
‘We always wanted to make a completely American wine. A Bordeaux style wasn’t our goal’
David Duncan (above)