Twice a year, crowds anxiously line up outside the gates of the Silver Oak Cellars in the heart of Napa Valley. Encompassing an entire spectrum of ages from newly minted twenty-one year old’s, to middle-aged families with children in tow, to grey-haired boomers, they are a snapshot of the modern wine lover. Each one anxiously clutches their entry ticket, awaiting the moment the doors swing open, and they can enter.
It’s like a bacchanal Willy Wonka Adventure, except instead of five golden tickets found inside candy bars, these drinkers have paid $200 for the opportunity to sample the latest Cabernet being released to the public from a Napa legend. The events have been going on for decades and fly in the face of the notion that wine tasting is a staid affair. Instead, it has helped create a cult-like status around Silver Oak and its award-winning Cabernets. Plus, it created a blueprint for releasing new products that has been copied across Napa Valley and beyond by winemakers, distillers, and craft brewers.
“Over the years, our biannual release date has morphed and taken a lot of turns. What started as a small, sedate affair in the late eighties quickly took on a life of its own,” says David Duncan, the CEO of Silver Oak. “The first year, about thirty people showed up, but within a few years, we had over three hundred people at our doors. So, we just decided to run with it and make it an event to reward our fans.”
Founded in 1972 by Ray Duncan (David Duncan’s father) and Justin Meyer, Silver Oak has followed a singular mission from its first days. To make the best Cabernet Sauvignon possible. Taking inspiration from European winemakers, they only focused on one wine, not a broad spectrum like many others in the region. They also made the radical decision to solely age their juice in American Oak to produce a more mellow tannin flavor profile and to pick their grapes later than others to impart their wines with a lushness not typical in the region at the time.
