Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The beautiful 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon One Point Five (7,000-8,000 cases produced) exhibits a dense purple color as well as a gorgeous perfume of boysenberries, black currants, subtle toast and spice and a slight floral component. The wine is medium to full-bodied with good acidity, a voluptuous texture and impressive purity and length. Drink this stunning Cabernet over the next 15 years.
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Wine & Spirits
Elias Fernandez blends this wine from Shafer's vineyards under the Stags leap escarpment and the family's Borderline Vineyard. It has the balance of freshness and intensity that the best Napa Valley 2007s can claim, a supple and delicious red with complexity riding beneath lush cherry fruit. Scents of mineral tannins, mesquite and tobacco hint at the development that will come with eight to ten years in bottle.
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Wine Enthusiast
A good, lusty wine, although it's too young now, offering a big mouthful of tannins, acidity and immature fruit. A blend of 99% Cab and 1% Petit Verdot, it’s a hard wine, but the flavors are immaculate, suggesting ripe blackberries and currants that veer into a touch of raisin.
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.