Winemaker Notes
Located at the very heart of Stags Leap District, the Stags' Leap Winery continues a proud winemaking heritage in the prestigious appellation that bears the winery name. Here, at their 240-acre wine estate, a unique terroir and an ideal microclimate suppor a classic standard of viticulture, land use and winemaking that is as relevant today as it was a century ago.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Love the aromas of clay, terracotta, blackberries and black licorice. Full-bodied yet compact and linear. Very fine tannins. Fantastic, cool and tight finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Petite Sirah is made up of 79% Petite Sirah, 8% mixed Rhône varieties, 7% Grenache and 6% Syrah, aged for 12 months in 25% new American oak. Very deep purple-black in color, it opens with notes of freshly crushed black cherries and black berries with touches of plum preserves, baking spices and tar. The palate is medium to full-bodied, very firm and grainy with a lively line to lift the peppery black fruit to a long finish.
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Wine & Spirits
Winemaker Christophe Paubert presents his Napa Valley petite sirah with a French accent, sweet, sassy and friendly rather than aggressively tannic. He builds it around petite sirah he grows at the Stags’ Leap estate, adding fruit from the warmer northern end of the valley and some cooler lots south to Coombsville. It’s rich with sweet cherry and black-tea tannins, ending lean and dry.
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.
Undoubtedly proving its merit over and over, Napa Valley is a now a leading force in the world of prestigious red wine regions. Though Cabernet Sauvignon dominates Napa Valley, other red varieties certainly thrive here. Important but often overlooked include Merlot and other Bordeaux varieties well-regarded on their own as well as for their blending capacities. Very old vine Zinfandel represents an important historical stronghold for the region and Pinot noir is produced in the cooler southern parts, close to the San Pablo Bay.
Perfectly situated running north to south, the valley acts as a corridor, pulling cool, moist air up from the San Pablo Bay in the evenings during the hot days of the growing season, which leads to even and slow grape ripening. Furthermore the valley claims over 100 soil variations including layers of volcanic, gravel, sand and silt—a combination excellent for world-class red wine production.