Wine Travel and Tasting in California (March 2002)

    We started out at the Alexander facility of Silver Oak. I know that these days it is popular among some to criticize Silver Oak as a corporate winery making "New World" (i.e., over-oaked fruit bombs) wines. However, we have been enjoying these wines for years and see no dramatic change in the profile of either the Napa or Alexander Valley. We tasted for the second time the '97 Napa, and it is showing much better than most Napas this early on. The tannins are very smooth and much riper than say the '96. Romana at the tasting room was kind enough to open the cellar that stores the library wines (going back to the '72 North Coast) so that we could take some pictures.

As you can see, there are a number of large format bottles still in the library. You can click on the above photos for a larger image. We were able to taste a barrel sample of the '98 Alexander Valley. With all the bad press concerning the '98 vintage (as well as our own tastings throughout the last few months), we were not expecting much. Boy, were we surprised. The '98 had a nice typical ruby red Silver Oak color. At first, the nose had a lot of green pepper which I normally associate with a Bonny's Vineyard (or later a Napa) bottle. However after a few minutes, the normal chocolate nose came through. The wine exhibited surprising richness and ripe fruit for a '98. Even though a 100% Cab, the tannins were very smooth, and this looks to be another great bottle. FYI: The case production was approximately 60,000.

    The next day, we traveled down through Calistoga to Napa and spent the day at David Arthur's place. If you have never done a "tasting" at David's, then you just have not lived life! He is a remarkable owner, very generous with his time, his wine and his stories. We actually spent six hours with David, his wine maker Bob Egelhoff. David's place is off of Sage Canyon Road in St. Helena. He sits on top of a mountain and the views are incredible. David is known best for Elevation 1147, but all of his wines are consistently great. We started-off with a barrel tasting of the 2000 Sangiovese, 2000 Cab Franc and then moved on to what is likely to be the 2000 Cab and Elevation (click on all the photos for larger images). Bob said that he would make the final blend of all the wines within the next couple of weeks. While the early reports are that the 2000 vintage will not measure up to '99, all the wines were tasting great at this early stage.

After the barrel tasting, David cracked open some of the '98 Cab, '99 Meritaggio and 99' Elevation 1147 (he also poured the 2000 Chard but we all forgot to taste it!!!). The Elevation had wonderful earthy qualities and sweet ripe tannins but needs at least another year to fully come around. In my opinion, the '99 Meritaggio is showing much better than the '98.

After tasting a few of the wines, David took us down to see the progress on his caves. Lilly and I had been to David's a year before, and it is amazing the amount of work that has been done. It looks like within the next year or so, the caves will be in pretty good shape.

Finally, we finished-off the day at David's with a few nice people from Texas and the San Jose area with a couple of magnums of the '98 Cab as well as a magnum of the '99 Elevation. David was just so generous and concerned that everyone have a good time, and Lilly and I made sure not to disappoint. By the end of the day, Bob even opened up his '99 Egelhoff which looks to be another exceptional wine.

    The following day, we were scheduled to stop-off and see Richard Partridge (another of Bob's clients). We have tasted with Richard before (the components of the 2000 Cab, which were fantastic), and we were ready to taste the final blend of the 2000 Cab. Unfortunately after the long day at David's place, we just could not taste again. We left for Santa Clara in the morning after a couple of great days in California wine country.