A different kind of silver bullet
We went to a close friend’s house tonight where I store much of my excess wine…I had to take over my Hestan and a few other random bottles that require long-term storage. I swapped out a few bottles of wine (such as a 2003 Jessie’s Grove Carignane) and brought back some nice, aged beers that I’ve had for a couple of years (such as a 2000 Leviathan barleywine from Fish Tales Brewery).
After a lovely dinner at Ginza in Bellevue, we went back and drank a bottle of 2000 Silver Oak (Napa Vineyard). Wow, that’s a smooth wine. Some good tannic structure, should last for years and years as I know it’s designed to do. We ate some brie and Stilton cheese with the wine and, interestingly, the cheeses brought out a great deal of blueberry syrup flavor in the wine. Quite a remarkable combination!
I have tried Silver Oak on a couple of occasions and I find it nice, simple, straightforward, and excellent with steak. On its own tonight (or with the cheeses), it tasted delicious…but a little bit too blended, if that’s possible. I mean, yeah, it’s terrific, but it was terrific in the way that a Honda sports car would be terrific: You always know what you’re going to get. I like a wine that’s a little bit less predictable, I suppose.
The blend of the 2000 wine wasn’t weighted as heavily toward Cabernet Sauvignon as the 2001. Interesting…I’d love to try them back to back. But at $85-$105/bottle, that’s not very likely.