Winemaker Notes
Cinnamon and cocoa scents mingle with the aromas of black cherry, blackberry, and toasty oak. Robust flavors of espresso and red and black fruits layer deep into the core of this delicious wine. Elegant tannins round into the firm backbone of the wine, while an impression of bittersweet chocolate hangs gently on the aftertaste.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
From a great vintage for the valley, the 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Signature is drinking at point today, with a layered, full-bodied, incredibly satisfying style. Giving up complex notes of red and black fruits, bouquet garni, iron, and tobacco, it has full-bodied richness and integrated, polished tannins. It's ready to go but should keep for another decade.
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James Suckling
A solid wine with currant and herbal undertones with some rose stem. Chocolate and currant. Medium to full body. Firm and pretty. Holding on nicely.
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Wine Enthusiast
This is the winery's basic Cabernet, but there’s nothing common about it. It’s dry and complex and moderately ageworthy, a hillside Cabernet that revels in its plush, firm tannins and ripe fruit. There’s a minerality that seems to come from the soil, with expressive blackberry, currant, chocolate and anise flavors. Really fine now after a decant, and should develop through this decade.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The mature 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Signature boasts pronounced scents of pipe tobacco and cedar, but it continues to offer hints of black cherries as well. Full-bodied, plush and velvety, it's an excellent wine with several more years of prime drinking still ahead of it.
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Wine & Spirits
Mochachino scents of oak come first, followed by a blast of cherry fruit, the chocolate and cherry flavors expanding into a vast wine, crushed by a mineral stomp of tannin in the end. This is powerful without being superripe or hot, just impressively huge. Serve it to your power-hungry friends.
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Wine Spectator
Very tightly wound, firm and taut, rich and full-bodied, offering intense mineral, blackberry, plum and currant fruit, with floral and sage hints. Ends with gripping tannins, but on the finish the flavors slowly unwind and expand. Needs time. Decant. Best from 2011 through 2020.
The Chappellets' romance with Pritchard Hill began when Donn and Molly Chappellet first glimpsed the mountain's spectacular vistas in the late 1960s. Inspired by the notion that Bacchus loves the hills, Donn and Molly followed the advice of legendary winemaker André Tchelistcheff and settled on the rocky eastern slopes of the Napa Valley. There, on the mountain’s serene and picturesque hillsides, the Chappellets established their home and winery, raising their children and cultivating the vineyards.
Since being founded by Donn and Molly in 1967, Chappellet has earned acclaim championing the robust power and complexity of wines crafted from mountain grapes. At the same time, Chappellet has helped to establish Pritchard Hill as one of California’s most revered winegrowing sites. To honor the mountain's rich, expressive character, the winemaking team focuses on creating extraordinary, age-worthy Cabernet Sauvignons that embody the intensity and finesse of fruit from Pritchard Hill.
One of the most prestigious wines of the world capable of great power and grace, Napa Valley Cabernet is a leading force in the world of fine, famous, collectible red wine. Today the Napa Valley and Cabernet Sauvignon are so intrinsically linked that it is difficult to discuss one without the other. But it wasn’t until the 1970s that this marriage came to light; sudden international recognition rained upon Napa with the victory of the Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon in the 1976 Judgement of Paris.
Cabernet Sauvignon undoubtedly dominates Napa Valley today, covering half of the land under vine, commanding the highest prices per ton and earning the most critical acclaim. Cabernet Sauvignon’s structure, acidity, capacity to thrive in multiple environs and ability to express nuances of vintage make it perfect for Napa Valley where incredible soil and geographical diversity are found and the climate is perfect for grape growing. Within the Napa Valley lie many smaller sub-AVAs that express specific characteristics based on situation, slope and soil—as a perfect example, Rutherford’s famous dust or Stags Leap District's tart cherry flavors.