The odds on any decent 30 year old California Cab, well cellared, being dead are extremely low.
The odds on it being over-oaked are extremely high.
In the best of all possible worlds, where we do not live, there would be a strainer that could remove all of the splinters.
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Understood. But as I have said many times, the provenance of a lot of these bottles is unknown to me. This one had no price tag or even a bar code, so perhaps my dad picked it up at the winery.
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I have had better luck with the regular Simi Cabernet Sauvignon.
As in less oak?
Well, if caffeine is not an option for you in the evening, these old, toasted oak cabs can be decent alternative to coffee 
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A 1978 Simi CS I lugged to Yokohama in the mid-eighties was a joy to drink. Don’t recall if it was a reserve or not. Maybe the lack of wine in Japan made it all the more special but I certainly enjoyed it. David, your father seemed to be enamored with Cali Cab.
Yes, he loved Napa (mostly) Cabernet, but in reality Cabernet in general. His formative wine was 1961 Chateau Beau Site. Later on he bought and drank a lot of 1960s Inglenook and BV Cabs.
What followed were the dark years of 2 and 3 liter jugs of Gallo Hearty Burgundy (though it was a better wine back then) before he found his way back to California in the late 1980s and really the early 1990s.
What still puzzles me is the several hundred bottles of California Cabernet that he never drank, even stuff he bought long before his health started to decline.
One of my formative wine experiences was my freshman year in college, 1963. I was in a Monday night poker game. A guy won a big pot and threw a dollar at the guy who was old enough to buy wine. He said “Next time, buy the gallon of Gallo Zinfandel instead of the Burgundy. It’s a buck more and it’s worth it”. This was before Gallo Burgundy became ‘Hearty’. And I would bet that the Zinfandel was all old vine Sonoma. You could probably buy five gallons for what an entry-level Turley costs today.
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I can imagine there was a lot of Lodi Zin in Hearty Burgundy.
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Would not surprise me, but in my prehistoric times, the Burgundy wasn’t even ‘Hearty’. Quite possibly some Lodi Zin to beef up the Central Valley stuff, which probably had a ton of Ruby Cabernet in it.
Yes, they seemed to have less oak and were more enjoyable to drink.
Sounds like one of us: a true Berserker. How many of us have more wine cellared than we’re ever likely to drink? And of course we bought it to drink, not to sell.
Ah well, not our worry after we’re gone. Our heirs will sort it out. We’ll be fortunate indeed if it ends up with a son or daughter who honors the legacy as you have been doing.
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The cork looked great but it was barely contained in the neck of the bottle. Wine was oxidized. Dead, dead, dead. Silver and oak make for a lovely casket!
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I don’t think you missed much. I had numerous bottles of that wine when younger and it always underwhelmed.
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Never a fan of the Napa bottling, the Alexander was good back in the day.
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I have several bottles of the AV.
You know, that’s interesting. I was always told the Napa was the prestige bottling and, to be fair, I more often had the Alexander Valley cuvee, but I never really thought the Napa was all that much better back in the day (1990s).
Whatever cracks people make about “Silver Joke” it was a treasured staple of fancy dinners for me back when a bottle of Silver Oak was really pushing the boat out. Fine memories of the winery from the late 80s/early 90s , second only to Lauren Glen, which I also loved.
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David, a late friend of mine had a tasting of several vintages of Silver Oak AV and NV Cabs from 1991-2005 around 7-8 years ago. He said the favorites were the 1991, 1995 and 2001 AV, and that the AV bottles were preferred by the majority of the group. Hope yours will still be enjoyable!
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We used to get bottles of the AV and Napa each year from Wine Discount Center(now Vin Chicago) back in the 80’s. Both 750’s and 1.5. Many times the magnums tasted dilute and thin compared to the regular bottlings. Wondered if they were filtered to remove sediment for service at steak houses. Neve had a good bottle of the Bonnys(sp).
And now it’s Tales from the Crypt the Travel Game!
Tonight on Cape Cod it’s a special Champagne edition. Opening slightly soft but otherwise acceptable, the oxidation crept in quickly and within 30 minutes marked this as a wine that should have been consumed 10 years ago. It held relatively steady at that point until the last glass which was all oxidized caramel. No idea when dad bought this from Blicker-Pierce or when it had been disgorged. The back label was info free. Of course the wine was free to me, so no great loss.
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