Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
One of the stars of the exceptional 2013 vintage for California's North Coast Cabernets, the Staglin Family Vineyard Estate Cabernet Sauvignon brings all the elements of greatness together—exceptional ripeness, beautiful fruit, and lovely tannins. The wine's powerful, yet stylish red and black currants flavors, with just the right touch of oak place this wine as one the winery's best efforts to date. (Tasted: August 17, 2017, San Francisco, CA)
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Staglins’ flagship wine is the 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon from their holdings in Rutherford, in the foothills of the Mayacamas Mountains. This wine has an opaque purple color and a stunning nose of blackcurrants, licorice, violets and background oak. It is full-bodied and intensely rich, with sweet tannin and a long finish. Look for it to drink well for 30-40+ years.
Range: 95-97 -
James Suckling
A ripe and generous red with ripe berry, smoky meat and leather. Full-bodied, round and velvety. Extremely rich style for 2013. Drink or hold.
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Wine Spectator
Pure and rich, this offers a little bit of everything. Marked by supple, well-defined black cherry, plum, wild berry, mineral, dusty earth and cedar notes, this is impressive on the finish, maintaining elegance and finesse amid firming tannins. Best from 2019 through 2032.
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.
The Rutherford sub-region of Napa Valley centers on the town of Rutherford and covers some of Napa Valley’s finest vineyard real estate, spanning from the Mayacamas in the west, to the Vaca Mountains on the other side of the valley.
Inside of the Rutherford AVA, bordering the Mayacamas, is a stretch of uplands called the Rutherford Bench. (These bench lands technically run the length of Oakville as well). Mountain runoff creates deep, well-drained, alluvial soils on the bench, giving vine roots plenty of reason to permeate deep into the ground. The result is wine with great structure and complexity.
Rutherford Cabernet Sauvingons and Bordeaux Blends garner substantial attention for their enticing fragrances of dusty earth and dried herbs, broad and juicy mid-palates and lush and fine-grained tannins. The sub-appellation claims some of the valley’s most prized vineyards today, namely Caymus, Rubicon and Beckstoffer Georges III.
It is also home to Napa’s most influential and historic personalities. Thomas Rutherford, responsible for the appellation's name, made serious investments here in grape growing and wine production between the years of 1850 to 1880. Gustave Niebaum purchased a large swath of land and completed his winery in 1887, calling it “Inglenook.” Today this remains the oldest bonded winery in California. Georges Latour founded Beaulieu Vineyard in 1900, making it the oldest continuous winery in the state. Latour also hired the famous enologist, André Tchelistcheff, a man credited for single-handedly defining the modern Napa winemaking style.