From: Napa Valley, CA
Blend: 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15.2% Merlot, 5.1% Cabernet Franc, 3.2% Petit Verdot, and 0.5% Malbec
Taste & Critical Acclaim: 97 points James Suckling
This structured and concentrated wine is spot on for the vintage. It’s very dense in color and aroma, saturated with ultra dark chocolate, graphite and blueberries on a firm texture of taut tannins that will need time to evolve. Aged in 85 to 90 percent new American oak barrels, the wine should be approachable by 2028 and best from 2033. (2/2024)
95 points Decanter
The lovely ruby red colour is translucent, revealing a heady wine of blackberry, liquorice, vanillin, spicebush, and dried floral notes with savoury, toasty oak spices. This 2018 offers one of the more restrained and pretty bouquets of Silver Oak's Napa Cabernet in my memory. Very elegant on the entry, revealing a medium-bodied red wine with lovely cranberry fruit, plums, and currants, with a real depth to those fruit qualities framed by sculpted tannins that affix themselves onto the palate before giving way and resolving. Cabernet Sauvignon-dominant with trace amounts of Petit Verdot and Malbec. (JC) (10/2023)
More limited in availability than its Alexander Valley counterpart, this 2018 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15.2% Merlot, 5.1% Cabernet Franc, 3.2% Petit Verdot, and 0.5% Malbec. Silver Oak calls the vintage "a calm and abundant year with amazing fruit quality across all our properties." After blending in early 2019, the 2018 Napa blend was transferred to American oak barrels from Silver Oak's cooperage, The Oak, and aged for 24 months. The winery describes the process: "Blending before barrel aging—a signature of our winemaking style—allows blends to be based on the inherent qualities of their vineyard components before oak influence. It was then aged for an additional 24 months in bottle before being released in February of 2023." James Suckling: "Owner David Duncan explained that the American oak they use in the wine for aging now comes 100% from their own barrel-making facilities, which tones down the vanilla character in the wine." (03/2022)
About. Silver Oak was started in 1972 with a simple driving philosophy - to focus production on only one varietal, Cabernet Sauvignon. What's more, they resolved to create a wine with a style all its own: not another hard, tannic red wine requiring years of aging to enjoy, but a wine of fully developed flavors and a velvety soft texture on the day it is released for sale.
Silver Oak produces Cabernet Sauvignon from two appellations. Their Napa Valley derives its fruit from both owned and contracted vineyards, and is produced entirely at their Oakville winery. Beginning in 1994, small amounts of Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot have been included in their Napa blend to add complexity and softness.
Silver Oak also produces stellar Cabernet from their Alexander Valley vineyards. A critical reason for the success of this wine, and every wine they make, has always been that they create the final blend before aging it in American oak barrels and then bottles. Over the course of four-and-a-half years, the wine’s flavors, aromas, and textures have an opportunity to meld with one another and the wood’s delicate qualities to create the kind of graceful cohesion found only in the world's most elegant wines.
