1981 Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley

Community Tasting Notes (13) Median Score: 90 points

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  8/7/2021 - KL1191 Likes this wine:

  From magnum, as part of a 40th birthday celebration.
  
  Experienced very light seepage during recent transit. Cork was quite loose and ultimately needed to be pushed in. Decanted through cheesecloth and consumed over ~2.5 hours.
  
  Color was dark, inky, blackberry. Initial aroma made me nervous. It was a bit high-toned, even volatile (reminiscent of plum brandy/slivovitz), otherwise very Port-like, with a lot of baked fruit, particularly blackberry and blackcurrant.
  
  A sip put me out of the mind that this might be cooked, and validated that it was just showing age. There was plenty of life in this wine, with pleasing acidity that wanted food, and it made a wonderful pairing with a starter of flambeed pork belly with maple and dark chocolate. There were actually two times in the evening when fire/smoke entered the area of the table (the later, at dessert), and both times it seemed to improve the showing of the wine. Drink with cigars?
  
  There was no obvious signs of American oak (vanilla/coconut), but as the wine opened up (60-90 minutes post decant), it became more savory with notes of soy, as well as plum, softening and expanding with the addition of decaying cedar as the previously volatile notes subsided and complexity increased to include tobacco. Continued to show very well with some excellent dry-aged Kansas City strips.

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  5/2/2021 - thesternowl wrote:

  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.

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  1/18/2014 - thesingingsomm Likes this wine: 87 Points

  Considering its age, still a lot of fruit left in the bouquet as well as on the pallet. More of a red fruit characteristics of plum, cranberry and cherry with lively acidity. There was coffee and a hint of bell pepper and licorice. As time went by about an hour or so after opening, as old wines do, the structure collapsed a bit in the mouth and became quite mellow. I think it can age couple more years, and my friend can open this wine in her 35th birthday!

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  4/22/2012 - saschul wrote:

  TO GWEN 4/12

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  11/14/2008 - jp007f wrote: 74 Points

  Musty smell, but not corked. Obviously well passed peak. Brown color, clear at the edge. Bouquet did not improve with time, neither did the wine. Decanted multiple times, wine was continuously and consistently mediocre. Not bad, but not good.

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