Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is an impressive, old-vine wine from mostly petite sirah with other red varieties, including grenache, mourvèdre and carignan – all planted together. Tasting history here. Full-bodied, tannin-driven and texturally fascinating. Fine-grained. Love this.
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Wine & Spirits
Frances Grange planted the Ne Cede Malis block in 1929, a mix of 16 varieties. It’s predominantly petite sirah, a variety first planted on the estate in 1872. Christophe Paubert tends that block today, and has been fascinated by petite sirah since he arrived at Stags’ Leap Winery in 2009 (he grew up outside of Sauternes, and his career has included four years as cellar master at Château d’Yquem). In 2015, he worked with that mixed planting to produce a pretty awesome wine, crunchy and detailed, an old-vine perspective on Napa Valley. There’s complexity in the tannins and in the floral buzz of the fruit, roseate and red. One panelist described it as “an elegant linebacker,” which you might interpret as a wine that’s strong without being blunt, its flavor and power coming at you from a lot of different angles, then surprising you with a silkiness where you might have expected weight. The fruit has a cranberry richness (yet another oxymoron), but the complexity is in the tannins, layering in a structure that’s both tense and lasting.
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Tasting Panel
Smooth, powerful, and rich with length and depth. Concentrated and balanced, it’s a remarkable wine made from a variety that deserves more respect.
A fashionable country resort in the mid-twentieth century, popular with Hollywood due to its 1892 stone Manor House and historic gardens, legends of bootleggers and gangsters, ghosts and gypsies, Stags' Leap has been home to three major family groups up through the modern revitalization of the winery that began in the 1970s.
Stags Leap Manor, as it was called in the 1920s, was known as one of the prominent country retreats in the Napa Valley at a time when resort and spa business was big. In addition to lodging and dining, amenities included lawn tennis, swimming, horseback riding, children's activities, golf, music, cards, a library, and Napa Valley wines and liquors (prior to and after Prohibition).
An intimate valley within the greater Napa Valley, Stags Leap is a place of natural beauty, storied buildings and gardens, a lively history, and a reputation for elegant wines showing finesse and intensity.
With its deep color, firm tannins and bold flavors, there is nothing petite about Petite Sirah. The variety, originally known as Durif in the Rhône, took on its more popular moniker after being imported to California in the early 1880s. Quintessentially recognized today as a grape of the Golden State, Petite Sirah works well blended with Zinfandel and finds success as a single varietal wine in the state’s warmer districts. Somm Secret—Petite Sirah is not a smaller version of Syrah but it is an offspring of Syrah and the now nearly extinct French Alpine variety called Peloursin.
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.