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Seems that whenever someone mentions to someone that I know a bit about wine the other person always validates themselves by saying they think Silver Oaks or Cakebread are great wines.
Just happened tonight, again.
Follow Ups:
...personally, Silver Oaks has been one of my favorite cabs over the years, usually great stuff and not bad for the price, considering what good cabs are selling for these days.
I did a "tour" of Cakebread about 25 years ago when the winery was just a small house on the back of the property where Jack and his wife lived. We sat at their kitchen table and chatted and then tasted from the barrels stored in the adjacent garage. He sent his sons to UC Davis and they took over and expanded it so it's become one of the premier boutique wineries along hiway 29.
They produce some good wine but I usually find it a little overpriced and not especially to my liking. I liked it better before they went high end.
If someone mentions these two wineries, I'd say it shows they know at least a little about decent wine.
Unlike Bose. Which is all about marketing instead of audio.
What's the wine equivalent?
Perhaps "two buck Chuck", the Charles Shaw wine sold at Trader Joe's.
Life's too short to drink cheap wine. Or listen to Bose.
They've become so ubiquitous. Every common steakhouse has Silver Oak as their top priced wine. Occasionally Cakebread is there too. It's like Robert Mondavi Reserve back in the 70's/80's. People come to deem them as top notch because the prices on the wine list do.
Silver Oak makes 60,000+ cases of the Alexander Valley, and about 30,000 cases of the Napa. Not very exclusive grapes. Yet they're asking $70-$100+ retail. Restaurants double and triple the price.
I haven't been knocked out by either one of their wines in the last 10+ releases. And don't think I'm just sour grapes. I used to push Cakebread back in the 70's/80's when they were a new kid on the block. At least on my block. And I had a bottle of '92 Silver Oak for our 20th Anniversary.
My comparison to Bose is that their everywhere and overpriced. People decide their the goods because of the high profile in the advertising world.
What would you nominate instead?
...perception.
For people who live in the Bay Area close to Napa, we would mention boutique wines which are pretty much unobtainable if we wanted to impress someone.
Marcassin Pinot and Chardonnay, for example. Harlan cab. Outpost zin.
For your friends in Texas, Silver Oak and Cakebread show they are serious about wine.
If they had mentioned a box or a jug, then you'd need to be concerned.
How about Kendall-Jackson or BV as Bose?
Sorry that you have such a low opinion of wine lovers and collectors in Texas.
Very unfounded.
And I think BV "George Latour" has more than validated itself over the decades. Much longer and better track record than Silver Oak or Cakebread. I'm sure they would agree.
Long live Andre Tchelistcheff!! BV is not Bose although Andre's eyebrows were 3 dimensional!! No lightning bolts please.
I thought Silver Oak Alexander Valley was great stuff in the 80's, 1985 was amazing, but now it's just overpriced. There are so many great wines out there, and personal taste is the final word. There is soooo much BS in the wine biz because many people are either intimidated by the selection of brands, which is what they rely on, along with ratings. Although these are the most common guides, the best one is a wine merchant that listens to your likes and dislikes, and wants you to develop your own palate based on this. Then you start experimenting based on your findings. What you smell and taste is just as important as the grape variety or region (although these are important to establish general styles or characteristics of a particular wine). You could conduct a blind tasting with knowledgeable winos, and shock most of them when the labels are identified. We spend a lot of time using our eyes to formulate opinions that should be governed primarily by our smell and taste.
In short, if you can find a good wine shop that cares more about you than a label or a rating, then you are on the right road. The next step is to use your instincts, not other people's opinions to determine what scores the best. The more you taste and focus, the more you ultimately learn and find that you will agree with the majority of wine geeks on what quality is, and develop YOUR palate. This stuff is all about enjoyment and sharing a meal with friends. Many people take themselves too seriously and hide behind the guise of status and pedigree, and use it to intimidate the beginner. Usually this type of wine snob knows a lot less than you might think and will be humbled in a blind tasting.
Life is too short to drink bad wine, but don't lose sight of what makes it good in the first place.
...near our house that did monthly blind tastings for about 10 people. The wine buyer was very knowledgeable and would go outside his shop to get other highly rated wines for inclusion. At the end he would go from the lowest scoring wine to the highest, reading comments from the taster's notes.
Usually the scores were all over the board. Very fun and informative.
Not long after those stopped a friend began doing every other month tastings at his house for about 8 people using the same tasting/scoring sheets. Someone would always bring a "ringer" to include. A zin for the cab tastings, for example, or a $10 bottle with the $30 bottles. It's easy to be fooled.
More recently we have had tastings and so have a few other friends. It's always surprising because the highly rated wines and labels usually score a lot lower than you'd expect.
...so I consider myself a Texan.
And I never heard of George Latour till I moved back to California.
I was only trying to make sense of your Cakebread/Silver Oak bashing.
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