Winemaker Notes
Enduring aromas and flavors of blackberry, cassis, dark chocolate, juicy black cherry, black pepper integrated nicely with silky tannins.
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This vintage shocked me when I did my retrospective earlier this year, and the 2004 Shafer Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select acquitted itself brilliantly in the vertical of Hillside Selects. It was a hot year, a relatively early harvest and there were worries that the heat had stressed the grapes, and there would be a lack of physiological ripeness and nuance. Those worries have not manifested themselves in this great Cabernet Sauvignon. Inky/purple-colored with notes of blueberry, blackberry, cassis, spring flowers, and a touch of toast, the wine is opulent, voluptuous and full-bodied with sweet tannin, just enough acidity to provide freshness, vibrancy and delineation, and a spectacular finish that goes on 40+ seconds. This is a killer, a showy and flamboyant style of Hillside Select that’s already drinking beautifully and should continue to do so.
-
Wine & Spirits
Hillside Select has come to define Stags Leap District cabernet; it's a luxury wine that still bears the reality of its place, in this case, a series of small knolls beneath the palisades at Napa Valley's eastern edge. Elias Fernandez coaxes a deliciously ripe wine from those hills, a combination of bright cherry and high-toned florals with bass notes that deepen to the marbled fatty richness of a grilled rib eye. It's dark, succulent and mouthwatering cabernet, hard to resist.
-
Wine Spectator
Pure, rich, intense and vibrant, with tight, sharply focused, vivid black cherry, blackberry and black currant fruit that has a nice dusty, loamy edge and ends with a pleasant burst of ripe fruit flavors that are long and persistent.
-
Connoisseurs' Guide
No wine has outranked Shafer Hillside Select over the last twenty-five years. There are those who say that the wine is too big, too direct, too heavy, cannot possibly age and typifies all that is wrong with California Cabernet Sauvignon today. We really have only one answer to that-please read our retrospective tasting of this wine covering 1978 to the present. The proof is in the glass, and we expect this current vintage to perform as well for the next two decades as it mates have done. It is deep, bold, almost heavy and heady wine, but it is layered, full of fruit and has the underlying structure to improve.
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.