Napa Valley Wine Tour 2011: Stag's Leap Wine Cellars

In the start of our Napa Valley wine tour adventure, this winery choice was more than slightly important to me. It was the pinnacle of wine drinking for me, I know that sounds very whimsical, but everyone has something that when asked would be there Ultimate "blank (insert wine here) destination" and for me this was Stag's Leap Wine Cellars. Legendary for all us wine geeks because of the significance of 1976 Judgement of Paris wine tasting, and it's winning wines, that put Napa and Stag's Leap on the world wide wine map in ways little other could. 

"On May 24, 1976, a wine tasting took place in Paris that changed the world’s view of California wines forever. The tasting was the brainchild of Steven Spurrier, an English wine merchant who owned an innovative wine shop and adjacent wine school in the center of Paris. 

Curious to see how these newcomers would fare against French wines made from the same kind of grapes, he arranged a blind wine tasting in celebration of the American Bicentennial activities in Paris. The French tasters chosen for the event had impeccable professional credentials. The French wines were First and other classified-growth red Bordeaux and white Burgundies. They were matched against California Cabernet Sauvignons and Chardonnays. The tasting was blind, with the identities of the wines concealed and the labels revealed only after the jury of nine tasters had voted its order of preference.

The unthinkable happened. The 1973 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars S.L.V. Cabernet Sauvignon - the first vintage produced with grapes from vines a mere three years old - was judged the best. The Cabernet had bested four top-ranked Bordeaux, including first-growths Château Mouton-Rothschild and Château Haut-Brion. The 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay from California bested its French counterparts."

For all other people Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars is best known for our estate-grown Cabernet Sauvignons—CASK 23, S.L.V., and FAY. Over the years, these wines have become some of the most highly regarded and collected wines worldwide. They are fashioned to express classic elegance, structure, and ageability, and to reflect the place in which they are grown.

“Warren Winiarski has been one of the guiding lights of the California wine industry.”

– Karen MacNeil, The Wine Bible

His hands are featured above, along with every other winemaker that has worked for Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, and to see and touch it is to put your hands in those same hand-prints of people who've shaped the wine world, and what we see, drink and appreciate as wine today.

The facility is every wine geeks (and event planners) dream, lot's of beautiful vineyards, long underground caves filled with aging barrels, atmospheric chambers (perfect for elegant dinners) filled with the smell of fermenting wine and soft light!

Tasting Notes: Stag's Leap Cabernet has often been described as “an iron fist in a velvet glove.” This statement might sound like a cliche but it's Machiavellian theme couldn't be more honest in it's flavor identification. 

2007 CASK 23 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon - This is a blend of 1/3 S.L.V and 2/3 Fay vineyards, and you can very much taste the backbone structure from the Fay, and the soft fruit from the S.L.V makes this the ultimate in high-end Napa Valley Cab's
2007 S.L.V. Estate Cabernet Sauvignon -Smokey, earthy and smooth this is my personal favorite
2007 FAY Estate Cabernet Sauvignon -Soft fruit, tannic back bone, a noticeable structure
    2007 ARTEMIS Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon - I love this wine, it's a somewhat more affordable version of the other greats - it encompasses a mineralistic flavor, a soft fruit forwardness that reminds me almost of Merlot.

This place was also a winery tourism dream, and absolutely worth checking out, from the history, the tastings of their premier Cabernet's and the creme de la creme experience you couldn't find a more cult followed destination point in Napa.