Winemaker Notes
On first inspection, delightful notes of blonde roast coffee and cracked black pepper blend harmoniously with cherry cola and spiced blueberry jam. The wine’s texture is round, with classic Stags Leap District tannins surrounded by mouth-filling pomegranate juice and raspberry mocha flavors. These savory and sweet notes complement a generous serving of Gorgonzola Dolce on a crusty Pain au Levain boule. The wine’s fine grain tannins, balanced by refreshing acidity, create a lush and velvety back palate that brings forth black raspberry and toasted oak hints before gently fading away on the long finish.
Professional Ratings
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Tasting Panel
Captivating and generous, this remarkable red features boysenberry, new leather, white chocolate, and lavender on a foundation of spiced licorice. Well-evolved tannins create a most inviting mouthfeel that's creamy and graceful rather than overtly dense.
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James Suckling
This has a toasty, dark-fruited character with hints of chocolate and ground spices. Medium- to full-bodied, compact and polished with tight-grained tannins and succulent fruit underneath. Wide and encompassing. There is a weightless cloudiness to the texture with a chalky, lightly chewy finish.
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Decanter
Fermented in stainless steel, concrete, and oak barrels with rigorous pump-overs, then aged in 50% new French oak barrels for 20 months. It presents a sophisticated Stags Leap District Cabernet from its nose of Bing cherry, graphite, toasty cedarwood, and dark chocolate notes through its full-bodied, broad-shouldered palate expression. Intricate fine-grained tannins weave a blanket of structure around ripe blackberry, cherry, and plum fruits. Expressive cast iron and graphite minerality lingers on the extended finish. An additional 5% Malbec rounds out the blend.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Brought up in 50% new French oak, the 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Stags Leap District is a sweetly fruited, ripe, opulent Stags Leap release with ample blackberry and currant fruits, some tobacco, sage, and chocolate nuances, ripe tannins that build with time in the glass, and a great finish. It has the fruit to shine even today but enough structure to keep for 15+ years.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pine Ridge has 47 acres of estate vineyard in Stags Leap, which is plenty to supply 1,092 cases of the 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Stags Leap District. There are more cherries and raspberries in this bottling than the other efforts from Pine Ridge, with notes of cinnamon and clove also making appearances. It's full-bodied and labeled at the same alcohol level as all of the others (15.5%, coincidence?), yet it seems more elegant and cohesive, with a long, silky-smooth finish that still ends on a coffee-like note.
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Wine Spectator
Offers up robustly ripe and juicy fruit, with açaí berry, steeped black cherry and boysenberry compote notes pumping along, underscored with hints of briar, licorice and mocha along the way. Showing the grip for balance, this is generous and hedonistic now, albeit not shy in style. Drink now through 2036.
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Wine & Spirits
Despite its plummy ripeness, a full raft of youthful tannins and warm alcohol, this cabernet still comes off as austere. The fruit held within a taut structure of tannins, this needs a year or two to relax.
Founded in 1978, Pine Ridge Vineyards sits in the heart of the Stags Leap District of Napa Valley, tucked beneath of ridge of pines that speak to the dramatic geologic origins of our home and unique soils. For over 40 years the winery has become a pioneer farming and vinifying Bordeaux grapes with a focus on Cabernet Sauvignon. Today, Pine Ridge Vineyards farms a collection of 160 acres of Napa Green sustainably certified estate vineyards across Oakville, Rutherford, Howell Mountain and Carneros, including 47 acres in the Stags Leap District.
The winery’s Chenin Blanc + Viognier bottling started out as an experimental blend over twenty-five years ago and is now one of the most beloved and highly acclaimed white wines available. Original and unique, this fresh white wine blend is crafted to be fresh, fruity and easy to pair and enjoy. The wine has also inspired a Pine Ridge Sparkling wine also made with Chenin Blanc and a splash of Viognier.
A noble variety bestowed with both power and concentration, Cabernet Sauvignon enjoys success all over the globe, its best examples showing potential to age beautifully for decades. Cabernet Sauvignon flourishes in Bordeaux's Medoc where it is often blended with Merlot and smaller amounts of some combination of Cabernet Franc, Malbecand Petit Verdot. In the Napa Valley, ‘Cab’ is responsible for some of the world’s most prestigious, age-worthy and sought-after “cult” wines. Somm Secret—DNA profiling in 1997 revealed that Cabernet Sauvignon was born from a spontaneous crossing of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc in 17th century southwest France.
Legend has it that quick and nimble stags would escape the indigenous hunters of southern Napa Valley through the landmark palisades that sit just northeast of the current city of Napa. As a result, the area was given the name, Stags Leap. While its grape-growing history dates back to the mid-1800s, winemaking didn’t really take off until the mid-1970s after a small but pivotal blind tasting called the Judgement of Paris.
When a 1973 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon won first place against its high-profile Bordeaux contenders, like Chateau Mouton Rothschild and Chateau Haut-Brion, international attention to the Stags Leap District of Napa Valley escalated rapidly.
The vineyards in this one-of-a-kind wine growing region receive hot afternoon air reflecting off of its eastern palisade formation. In combination with the cool evening breezes from the San Pablo Bay just south, this becomes an optimal environment for grape growing. While many varieties could thrive here, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot dominate with virtually no others, save for a spot or two of Syrah.
Stags Leap soils—eroded volcanic and old river sediments—encourage well established root systems and result in complex, terroir-driven wines. Stags Leap District reds have a distinct sour cherry and black berry character with baking spice and dried earth aromas, and supple tannins.