Shafer
2018

Shafer ‘Hillside Select’ Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon

Cabernet Sauvignon
California Stags Leap District United States North America
Tasting Notes
Technical Details
Attributes
Reviews
This Cabernet Sauvignon celebrates hillside vineyards. Rugged, arid vineyard blocks., such as these, with rocky, scant soils create ideal conditions for producing wine of classic richness and elegance. This wine also exhibits the structure and beauty that are the hallmarks of wines born of the winery’s location within Napa Valley’s Stags Leap District. Aged nearly four years prior to release, this wine offers the pleasures of youthful boldness on release and rich nuance after a decade or more of bottling.
100% Cabernet Sauvignon grape blend.
This wine contains allergens, sulfites.
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The Estate

Shafer Vineyards traces its beginnings to 1972 when John Shafer left a 23-year career in the publishing industry and, with his family, moved to the Napa Valley to pursue a second career in wine. After purchasing a 210-acre estate in Napa Valley’s Stags Leap District, the Shafer family faced the arduous task of replanting the existing vineyards, which dated to the 1920s, and terracing the steep and rocky hillsides, eventually expanding vineyard acreage to its current 50 acres.

Wine Making

A lengthy, warm summer allowed the fruit to hang in near ideal conditions for a long, long time producing clusters of fruit with vivid color, enticing flavors, and unrivaled aromas.

Food Suggestions

Pairs well with beef, lamb, deer, venison, mature and hard cheese, and poultry dishes.

• Available Size: 1.5L (6 pc) & 750mL (6 pc)
• Family-Owned
• Historic Vineyards & Winery
• Sustainable
• Type: Wines
• Sub-type: Wines
• Class: Red
• ABV%: 15.5

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate – 98

"Made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select displays a deep garnet-purple color, bursting from the glass with scents of blueberry pie, crème de cassis, black cherry compote and chocolate box plus nuances of cedar chest, clove oil, lavender and menthol. The richly fruited, full-bodied palate has a lively skip in its step, featuring gorgeous ripe, velvety tannins and fantastic freshness to support all the spicy black fruit layers, finishing long and perfumed. An absolute triumph."

James Suckling – 98

"Wild blackberries and brambleberries on the nose with raw cocoa, cloves and crushed gravel. Violets and orange peel, too. It’s medium-bodied with wonderful purity and depth of fruit, interlaced with dark-chocolate flavors. Firm, well-integrated tannins. Complex and refined with fantastic energy. One of the finest Hillside Selects I have had. Better from 2024."

Jeb Dunnuck – 98

"In the running for the wine of the vintage, the 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select is an incredible success and offers more depth, opulence, and purity than just about every other wine out there. Revealing a dense purple color as well as a killer nose of blueberries, chocolate-covered cherries, scorched earth, tobacco, violets, and exotic spices, it hits the palate with full-bodied richness, a seamless, pure, incredibly layered mouthfeel, building tannins, and a great, great finish. As with most top 2017s, it stays tight and compact on the palate, with notable structure and impressive concentration. It has some up-front appeal given its purity of fruit and balance, yet it's going to take 7-8 years to hit prime time and will be a long-lived bottle of Napa Cabernet. Hats off to Doug Shafer and the team for yet another magical Cabernet Sauvignon!"
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