If you are visiting us for the first time, Welcome! The Wine Spies feature one exceptional wine each day – and we only bring you wines that we ourselves seek out and love. Always, the wines are great. Sometimes even better than that, as is the case with today’s wine from Silver Oak Cellars.

EXTRA SAVINGS ALERT!: Save an additional 5% off and get Free Ground Shipping when you buy 6 or more bottles. Use coupon code: SILVERSPY (savings applied at final checkout)

Mission Codename: Platinum Oak

Operative: Agent Red

Objective: Infiltrate Silver Oak Cellars and see if the legend surrounding their Cabernet Sauvignon is well-deserved – or just so much bluster. If the wine lives up to its reputation, secure an ample quantity for our Operatives

Mission Status: Accomplished, wine procured!

Current Winery: Silver Oak Cellars

Wine Subject: 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon

Winemaker: Daniel Baron

Backgrounder: Fans of Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon are as fiercely loyal as they come. Try getting your hands on part of a new shipment to your local bottle shop and you’ll likely find it pre-sold – and often for a price that is higher than the regular retail price. Agent Red was able to get an inside look at Silver Oak and he loves their 2003 Alexander Valley Cab. Read his tasting notes and mission report below

Wine Spies Tasting Profile:

Look – Deep, rich burgundy in color and dark right to the edges where only the finest sliver of clear is apparent. That sort of concentrated color is a great sign that usually means that the wines flavors will follow suit. This wine also has a deep dark heart and fat, slow-moving legs

Smell – Rich dark concentrations of ripe purple fruit, smoky, earthen plum, deep cherry, violet, anise, oak, soft spices and a unique soft hint of melted butter

Feel – Cool and light at first but almost immediately the wines chalky tannins bite down, coating the mouth and drying the lips

Taste – Complex and bold with layers of concentrated flavors of rich dark cherry, cassis, light plum, blackberry, dark bakers chocolate and with a hint of minerally-tomato vine

Finish – Long and slightly dry, with big and integrated flavors and sweetness that lingers

Conclusion – This is a fantastic wine. It is rich and deeply layered and very tasty. A great surprise for sure. I always try to manage my own expectations when it comes to popular wines; Sometimes wines don’t live up to their hype, other times the wines are better than expected. This wine from Silver Oak delivers the goods, and then some. It is a big wine to be sure, but it also has an elegance that keeps its big flavors in check. If you’ve always wondered about this wine, now is your chance to become a believer. I am.

Afterward – Decant this wine for an extended period for best results. After 4 hours, the wine becomes far more refined and way more delicious

Mission Report:

From the early days of my own wine infatuation, Silver Oak was a name that I had heard again and again. Usually some friend or other would recommend it, or I would overhear conversations in local bottle shops. Always, the esteem that people showed for the wine was exceptionally high.

When I made the decision to finally try the wine, I headed out to my favorite shop. This particular shop stocked everything and I walked in knowing that I’d walk out with a bottle of Silver Oak’s Cabernet Sauvignon. Not only was this shop out, so, too, were the subsequent 4 that I visited.

A year and a half later, The Wine Spies had been covertly spying new wines and recruiting new Operatives for more than 8 months. It was finally time to pay Silver Oak a covert visit.

After a single tasting, I was hooked. There was no need for an extended surveillance here. The wine needed to find its way into the cellars of our thirsty Operatives and so I set about to make contact with the winery.

Making my intentions clear, the winery welcomed me with open arms – but then put The Wine Spies through a rigorous vetting process, checking our credentials, conducting a deep background check and making sure that we knew wine. It was a spy-worthy process and one that made me admire them all the more.

We are very proud to be featuring this great wine today and we hope that you enjoy it as much as we do. If you have never tasted what all the fuss is about, now is your chance!

Wine Spies Vineyard Check:

The location of the Silver Oak winery and surrounding vineyards can be seen in this satellite photo.