Winemaker Notes
Blend: 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Merlot, 3% Malbec
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Enthusiast
Taut and leathery, this is a thickly tannic, incredibly structured and powerful wine, softened by 7% Merlot and 3% Malbec. Extracted black fruit is poised amongst earthy truffle, crushed rock and black pepper, the aromas and flavors integrated and built to age. Enjoy best 2025–2030.
-
James Suckling
This shows nice concentration on the nose in terms of ash and blackcurrant but also some pretty floral elements with violets and jasmine. Full-bodied with a strong entrée of black fruit but with driven acidity, muscular tannins and a long finish. A blend of 95% cabernet sauvignon, 3% merlot, 1% malbec and 1% petit verdot. Drink in 2019.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Made of 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon One Point Five Stags Leap is very deep purple-black in color and gives up intense Black Forest cake, black berry pie and blackcurrant cordial scents with hints of licorice, eucalyptus, espresso, tar and chargrilled beef. Full-bodied, it packs the black fruit preserves flavors and earthy accents into the palate, with a firm frame and great freshness on the finish.
-
Jeb Dunnuck
Based largely on Cabernet Sauvignon (there’s 7% Merlot and 3% Malbec), the 2015 One-Point Five is another full-bodied, powerful yet elegant wine from this estate. Giving up rocking notes of crème de cassis, graphite, smoke tobacco, and licorice, it hits the palate with medium to full-bodied richness, tons of fruit and texture, remarkable purity, and a great finish. It’s a quintessential Napa Cabernet that’s going to put a smile on your face over the coming 15 years or more.
-
Tasting Panel
Rich vanilla and plum nose; silky texture with tightly-wound fruit and lush, graceful style; elegant, long, and neatly balanced.
-
Wine Spectator
Strikingly complex and engaging, offering tiers of flavor, including dark berry, cedar, graphite and oak, presented in a style that lets the elements speak through the tannins. Drink now through 2030.
-
Decanter
The small, concentrated 2015 vintage produced a One Point Five Cabernet that's less approachable now than in previous years, yet better built for the long haul. The brawny tannins mask the textbook Stags Leap District blackberry fruit, though it's certainly there, as well as oak vanillin and a savoury earthiness. 100% new French oak.
-
Wine & Spirits
Doug Shafer grows formidable cabernets at his family’s estate vineyards, this one clocking in at 15.3 percent alcohol. But it wears that power well, building intensity into a tight structure, offering an immediate impression of elegance. It’s heady with an umeboshi plum scent, and chunky with chocolate-covered-cherry flavors. Decant it several hours before you grill a butterflied leg of lamb studded with rosemary and garlic.
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.