Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler wine thread

A couple of bottles of Silver Oaks from work?
Who does she work for exactly? Trump?
Those bottles are about $65 a pop and up.
Nice employer.
Great gifts.

I have two of the Napa 95's that I need to drink real soon.

For the pice through, I'd not recomend Silver Oaks to anyone. I'd rather have a Provinence Cab any day for half the price.

The Silver Oaks are good, but there are some great wines for alot less money, I won't pay that much for a bottle unless it absolutely floors me.

Silver Oak was the first place we ever visited in Napa. Nice place and great wines. The Alexander Valley cab can be found for $50. I agree it's expensive but a good special occasion bottle with special meaning for us.

Last night a couple of my wine lover friends and I had our semi-annual inventory reduction night. We go through our coolers twice a year and pull out the bottles that we think are at the prime or due to turn. Each of us will pull out one of those bottles plus throw in something else we want to try with friends. We’ll make a night of it and cook up a good meal. Last night was Fillets with a creamy peppercorn sauce.

I started to take notes on each wine, but gave up. I really need to learn how to do that. The other guys were throwing words out there that were beyond me, but when they said it, I’d recognize the smell or flavor. The wine list:

93 Beringer, - Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon Private Reserve
03 Lamborn Family Vineyards – Napa Valley proprietor Grown Zinfandel (Papa’s Vintage)
02 Leonetti Cellar – Cabernet Sauvignon (Walla Walla Valley)
95 William Hill - Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve
03 Dutton – Goldfield Zinfandel
01 Yalumba – Signature Cabernet Sauvignon / Shiraz / Barossa blend.
97 Silver Oak – Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon

01 Dolce – Napa Valley Late Harvest Wine (desert wine)

Even though the Beringer was the most expensive bottle in the lot, I liked it the least. I think the few remaining bottles (if one were to find one) run about $250.

I ranked them like this – 7) Beringer 6) Dutton 5) Silver Oak 4) Leonetti 3) Yalumba

2 / 1 ) I like the Lamborn and William Hill the same and couldn’t decide which I liked more. Distinctly different wines but both were amazing. The other guys also preferred the William Hill over the rest of the bottles. The Leonetti was pretty damn good too, but a little young yet. In a couple years it will be something to look out for.

The Dolce was a real treat too. If you like desert wines, I definitely recommend this little bottle. Too expensive for me to buy ($150).

Adding to the Californian zin list:

Painter Bridge.
Quite nice and inexpensive ($12 cdn).

I'll have to try that one, only $7.00 here. We tried 5 new wineries to us in Paso over the 4th and found Catoro Cellars, we liked every wine we tasted there, inexpensive also. I've also found I like everything from Rosenblum Cellars.

Has anyone considered doing this (wine train) for a day trip?

Chess, thanks for the link, my wife wants to head up North to see her father over Thanksgiving, I think this will be a definite addition to the trip I have heard that it is a really fun excursion.

Please post your complete thoughts.
I'm interested in doing this if we head out there next year but i would like to know if the excursion is worth the price.