Silver Oak Winemaking Begins by Handcrafting the Barrel
Several years ago, I was introduced to Silver Oak Cabernet as the guest of a friend at a wine tasting dinner. I instantly fell in love with its bold, black fruit character with notes of spice and vanilla and the wine’s oaky finish that comes from American White Oak barrels that the wine ages in.
Silver Oak Winery and Vineyards in Alexander Valley, Sonoma County, California
I recently had the privilege of visiting one of my favorite winemakers at the source. Silver Oak’s Alexander Valley winemaking facility is just a few miles outside the town of Healdsburg in Sonoma County. I was on a media tour reporting on Sonoma County’s sustainability efforts. The county wants to have all of its wineries certified sustainable by 2020 and is close to reaching that goal with more than 90 percent already certified.
Karen LeBlanc, aka The Design Tourist, at the Silver Oak winemaking facility in its Alexander Valley vineyards.
Silver Oak embraces sustainability in its winegrowing practices and winemaking processes and its carbon footprint. The Alexander Valley winery is anchored by a tasting room, a modern glass barn built of recycled materials down to its blue jean insulation. The building earned LEED Platinum certification for Building Design and Construction (BD+C) in 2018 when it opened for tastings and tours.
Silver Oak’s LEED Platinum Certified tasting room at its Alexander Valley vineyards.
Silver Oak’s LEED Platinum Certified tasting room at its Alexander Valley vineyards.
Silver Oak’s Alexander Valley winery spans 113 acres with 75 acres of grapes and is focused around the production of a single wine, Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Along the tour, our guide shares details of Silver Oak’s sustainable viticulture practices that make it net positive water and net positive energy.
Silver Oak’s Alexander Valley winery spans 113 acres with 75 acres of grapes and is focused around the production of a single wine, Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.
The winery’s state-of-the-art water reclamation technologies include a Membrane Bioreactor (MBR) that treats and filters 100 percent of the water from the cellar with natural biological activity and reduces potable water needs by 37 percent. “The Membrane Bioreactor is the first of its kind so people come from all over to see how it works. We can reuse our water up to 16 times,” says Ian Leggat, my Silver Oak tour guide. The winery is solar powered with 2,595 rooftop solar panels that produce over one megawatt of electricity a year and helps generate 105 percent of its energy needs.
Silver Oak’s Membrane Bioreactor (MBR) that treats and filters 100 percent of the water from the cellar with natural biological activity.
The California winemaker also owns sustainably-managed forests of American White Oak trees in Central and Northern Missouri and its own barrel-making plant in Higbee Missouri, where craftspeople handmake each barrel.
Silver Oak owns The Oak Cooperage in Higbee Missouri where Master Coopers handcraft American White Oak barrels.
The Oak Cooperage produces 59-gallon wine barrels made of American White Oak from Central and Northern Missouri. Barrel-making is a dying art and Silver Oak is doing its part to keep it alive. A barrel-making craftsman is known as a Master Cooper and Silver Oak estimates there are less than 15 in the entire United States. In Higbee Missouri, there is a small group of Master Coopers who possess the skills required to select ideal staves that will produce intended flavor profiles.
The Oak Cooperage in Higbee Missouri where Master Coopers handcraft American White Oak barrels.
Silver Oak says it takes 80 years to grow an American White Oak tree to maturity so that it’s suitable to be harvested for barrel-making. After the tree is harvested, it remains in the lumber yard for two years to air dry as stave wood before fire blending, a technique that makes the wood more pliable for the Master Cooper. The wood staves are then dehumidified down to 20 percent of water content.
The barrel room at Silver Oak’s Alexander Valley vineyards.
Each barrel is completely toasted over a burning oak fire to “medium taste” so there is no raw oak touching the wine, using mild, slow toasting methods to keep the barrels free of char. Silver Oak winemakers believe the American oak barrels contribute less harsh tannins than French oak barrels giving its wines opulent, well-rounded flavors.
For many wine lovers, the art of enjoyment comes from the ability to decipher and appreciate a wine’s bouquet and taste. Silver Oak achieves its subtle perfection by blending the wines prior to barreling.
Karen LeBlanc, aka The Design Tourist, tasting Silver Oak Cabs in the tasting room at its Alexander Vineyards.
“We want to taste the components of the grape right after fermentation and before they are influenced by the oak. This allows us to select those grapes that complement one another and enhance the final blend. By blending our wines before they go into the barrel to age, we get a seamless taste that defines Silver Oak wines,” explains Silver Oak Director of Sales for the Eastern US, Tom Johnson.
Silver Oak’s Alexander Valley tasting room and tours
Silver Oak celebrates the release of its new wines twice a year. Release Day for the Alexander Valley Cabernet takes place each year on the 1st Saturday in August. Release Day for the Napa Valley Cabernet takes place each year on the 1st Saturday in February.
The winemaker also remains committed to the cork despite the increasing popularity of screw caps. “On release days, we open 150 cases of wine to smell the bottle and cork to check for any issues with bottling and prevent spoilage,” says Johnson.
Karen LeBlanc, aka The Design Tourist, in the Silver Oak Wine Library, a circular room lined with bottles of Silver Oak in various vintages.
Silver Oak was founded in 1972 by Raymond Twomey Duncan, a Colorado entrepreneur who began investing in California vineyards in the late 1960s, and Justin Meyer, a winemaker who began in a Napa Valley dairy barn in 1972, producing only 1,100 cases of their inaugural vintage. Today the Duncan family continues to run Silver Oak with David R. Duncan serving as President and CEO and Tim Duncan as Executive Vice President. The Duncan family also owns a sister winery, Twomey Cellars, that produces Pinot Noirs, Sauvignon Blancs and Merlots at Soda Canyon Ranch in southeastern Napa Valley.
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Jordan sells primarily to restaurants— about 70 percent of their cabs with the remaining 30 percent available in wine stores. Rob Davis, the winemaker, has handcrafted every vintage of Jordan since the inaugural 1976 and is the second-longest tenured winemaker in the US. He is known for a European style of winemaking that isn’t done much in California.
American oak is known for bringing more aggressive aromas of dill and coconut to red wines. French oak is considered more subtle, imparting spice aromas and a silky texture in part because its tannins have a strong attraction to the grape tannins. 
The original dining room was decorated in an 18th-century French style. De Sousa and his staff reimagined the aesthetic, retaining its best architectural features while introducing new design elements to reflect the chef’s culinary philosophy of bringing flavors of the surrounding countryside to the plate. “The Jordan dining room is now not only an homage to old-world France, it’s also a portrait of the surrounding estate and the chef’s philosophy,” notes Geoffrey De Sousa, proprietor of Geoffrey De Sousa Interior Design and De Sousa Hughes. 
Lunch starts with an amuse-bouche paired with NV Brut Jordan Cuvee by Champagne AR Lenoble. 
Next, I taste a 2017 Jordan Russian River Valley Chardonnay. The grapes are hand-picked at night when the fruit is cold to lock in that acidity and flavor. The fruit is then pressed immediately and fermented in French oak barrels and stainless-steel tanks for 6 months.
Chef Knoll pairs the 2017 Chardonnay with Bisque of First Peas and Favas chilled with Maine Lobster. Next, I’m served Roasted Knights Valley Lamb.
The dish is paired with Jordan’s 2015 Cab, that first release aging in only French oak barrels. “2015 was a cooler year yielding more of a French style of wine,” says Mattson. 
Chef Knoll makes sea salts and the estate grows olive trees to produce Jordan Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil, both of which are on the table to enhance the tasting experience. 
While dining, I can’t help but admire the visual metaphors that connect with the estate’s topography. Deep gray walls are painted with Benjamin Moore French Beret and accented with a forest-like patterned wallpaper called Midsummer Night from Wall & Deco, created by graphic designer Lorenzo De Grandis of Milan, Italy. 
The dining room’s original high-back chairs were restored and reupholstered with intricate chair embroidery by a renowned, haute-couture artist based in London. Each embroidery pattern is distinct and inspired by the vibrant, moss-carpeted rocks and lichen found across Jordan Estate. 
French Beaux Arts-inspired lighting illuminates the room selected by San-Francisco based designer Jonathan Browning Studios. Floor-to-ceiling drapes in gold leaf, frame large windows that take in panoramas of the golden hills visible across Jordan’s estate. Dining tables congregate around a bronze fireplace hearth by Sonoma County metalsmith Randell Tuell of Tuell + Reynolds. 
I also learn more about Jordan’s sustainable and holistic practices. The vineyard uses a plant substance called Dust Off on its roads to reduce dust and a clay-based sunscreen on the grapes to prevent sunburn. 
“We take into account the impact every viticultural and winemaking decision has on the native ecosystems under our care. Jordan’s electrical use is carbon neutral, with roughly 90 percent of our electricity coming from hillside solar arrays behind the winery and the rest from renewable resources through the Sonoma Clean Power program,” says Mattson.
Lunch culminates with a Tupelo Honey Baked Alaska featuring spring bee pollen from the Jordan estate apiary and several locally-made artisan cheeses plated with a 2013 Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon, Alexander Valley.
The meal crystalizes a certain synergy that exists in Sonoma County between its many different artists and winemakers who share a common passion for high-quality food made to complement local wines. Jordan, like many local wineries, promotes locally made foods and products with guests. 
Guests at Jordan’s Estate Tour and Tastings can appreciate custom-made serving plates by a ceramic-making husband-wife team, 
My tour ends with a visit to one of the guest suites located in the chateau available
Once a consumer spends $500 with Jordan, she/he becomes a Silver member and gains access to booking Private Tables in the dining room and at the Gold and Platinum levels, overnight stays in the guest suites. For more on booking tastings and tours, go to 
Quivira’s winegrowing program is a collaboration between winemaker Hugh Chappelle and viticulturist Ned Horton, the vineyard manager who aligns the property’s farming practices for fine winemaking. 
For this writer and bibliophile, I had planned the ideal morning. The 
Writers toil alone and words aren’t particularly selfie material. I wondered how the founders managed to fill an entire museum with something others want to see and experience sans the social media lure of competing attractions? The museum supersedes the visual limits of words by capturing the behind-the-scenes struggle— a writer’s daily summoning of the personal muse in hopes of entering that ethereal dimension of creative flow where all sense of time is lost as the words pour forth.
On the Road became a defining work of the Beat Generation, a loose collaborative of artists and writers who rejected the mainstream in favor of the experimental and spiritual. 
My other favorite exhibit was Mind of a Writer. This walls of this inspirational gallery are filled with quotes from famous writers about their creative process and craft. 
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I was intrigued by the raw honesty in many of the quotes that capture a writer’s self-doubt and fear that they will never be published— that lurking dread that they have gambled away their time on a manuscript that no one reads. 
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Many of these authors crafted their first lines for stories that have yet to be written.
Whether you consider yourself an author, a journalist, a creative writer or diarist, we all have a shared experience that is made tangible among the museum’s galleries and personified through the literary greats featured. I highly recommend a visit to the American Writers Museum to experience Chicago’s literary treasure. 
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Today, Medical City encompasses more than 2.6 million square feet of clinical, institutional and laboratory buildings. The University of Central Florida has a strong presence in Medical City with the UCF Health Sciences Campus that includes the College of Medicine, the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences, and the University of Central Florida (UCF) Lake Nona Cancer Center, which recently moved into a 175,000-square-foot facility vacated by the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute. 
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Created by 
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