SILVER OAK

This family-owned California winery is dedicated to Cabernet Sauvignon, and has developed a steadfast commitment to sustainability. Elin McCoy pays a visit, discovering the estate’s history and tasting verticals of its Napa Valley and Alexander Valley wines.

- Elin McCoy

At Silver Oak’s sleek new environmentally friendly and energy-efficient winery in Sonoma, floor-to-ceiling windows frame long views of green vineyards and rolling mountains. Looking out, I breathe in the filtered air and reflect on the virtues of sustainable building – the salvaged redwood siding from old wine tanks, the roof’s solar panels, the recycled water, the huge basalt rock in the circular wine library.

This modern, eco-conscious, barn-like Alexander Valley winery, which opened in 2018, is a step into the future for Silver Oak, a nearly 50-year-old California wine name dedicated to Cabernet Sauvignon, but with a surprising twist.

For decades, Silver Oak has been doing something unusual in northern California: making two parallel high-end Cabernets, one from Sonoma and one from Napa, released under the same brand name. The bottle shapes differ slightly, but the design of both labels features an oak tree and the winery’s signature wooden water tower.

What’s more, the dual Cabernet identity was woven into Silver Oak from its beginning in the early 1970s, by founders Justin Meyer and Raymond Duncan.

The two wineries are about an hour’s drive from one another, but just how much do the wines differ?

Keen to understand the backstory of Silver Oak, compare the two cuvées, and discover where the future lies for this historic brand beloved by media mogul Oprah Winfrey and LA Lakers basketballer LeBron James, I head north from Healdsburg to taste a decade’s worth of Cabernet.