1989 Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley

Community Tasting Notes (12) Avg Score: 89.1 points

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  3/2/2024 - Vinnut Likes this wine: 89 Points

  Dark garnet in color with clearing at the edges. Full, fragrant & attractive nose of ripe fruit aromas of cherries, blueberries & plums with overtones of earthy/dusty & floral notes, cedar, tobacco, herbs, minerals, dill & oak/vanilla. Medium-full bodied with a good concentration of well balanced & smooth textured, ripe fruit flavors of cherries, blueberries & cranberries with cedar, herbs, minerals, earthy, spices, mint & oak/vanilla. Lingering finish. Drinks quite well at present & is most likely is at or near its peak of development. I doubt there would be any further development from additional aging although it should hold at this plateau for a several more years. I suspect this wine may have been much better in its youth.

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  7/21/2019 - Dmahan76 wrote: 88 Points

  Drank along side an 88 Napa Valley and 88 Alexander Valley. This was still doing ok in comparison to the 88s, but not much left. Tannins are mute, but this still had a bit of acid. The cab fruits have given way to celery. Fun to try if you want to see how Cab ages, but I would not seek this out otherwise.

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  5/17/2018 - oldwines Likes this wine: 93 Points

  "Cult Cali" Night at Garth's Apartment in Philly (Philadelphia, PA, USA): Decanted for 2 hours in mid-afternoon, then returned to bottle for transport to "Cult Cali" Night at Garth's in Philly and consumed from about 6-9pm. I chose to bring this along to this event because I view the late, Justin Meyer as a pre-cursor to the "Cult Cal" craze of the last 25 years or so. He was among the first to let the grapes ripen more to make the now typical, big, more fruit forward style. In my cellar since release, this bottle was pretty pristine. The wine was medium to dark, nearly opaque garnet with just a hint of bricking. The nose had lots of earth, a little barnyard, vanilla and black fruit. The mouth feel was soft, rich and creamy with some chocolate, blackberry, graphite, black plum and an elegant, feminine mildly earthy finish that was moderately long. My last and perhaps best bottle from the vintage.

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  12/24/2017 - oldwines Likes this wine: 90 Points

  Decanted at 4:30pm and tasted through about 9:30pm. It is medium to dark garnet-purple, dense but not quite opaque. The usually old Silver Oak nose is effusive with oak, vanilla, black fruit (boysenberry?), cedar and tobacco. The mouth feel is fairly rich and viscous with low tannin and low to moderate acidity. the palate is boysenberry/blackberry, plum, black currant and cedar. Mid-Palate and finish are just a little deficient in length and depth. There is some chocolate on the finish as well. Good but I thought the palate and finish were lacking some in complexity compared to the nose which suggested more. Overall balance is fine but I always seem just a little disappointed with the Napa bottling's from the 1980's compared to the Alexander.

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  6/9/2015 - Woodbridge Brad Likes this wine: 83 Points

  From a friend's cellar, the ullage was at the bottom of the neck and the cork was quite sound so this was well stored. It needed decanting and aeration but it was still viable although not the wine it had been. Let me add that I have always regarded Silver Oak as somewhat over the top on American oak and I have tasted every vintage since Justin et al started it. I like it but it is not my favorite style. The danger of high oak levels is that when the fruit fades you have intense oak and oak tannins without the sweetness of the fruit to balance it. In this case you also still had good acid levels that accentuated the tannins. Bottomline the wine tasted okay, the color was still sound, the nose was oaky but it was not graceful in the mouth.

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