Shafer Vineyards Hillside Select, Stags Leap District, Napa Valley 2021

One of the Napa Valley’s benchmark estates, Shafer Vineyards has built an international reputation for elegant, age-worthy wines. In 1972, John Shafer purchased the winery which is located at the north end of the Stag’s Leap District of the Napa Valley. After extensive re-planting and re-development, their first vintage was produced in 1978. With son Doug and winemaker Elias Fernandez coming on board in the early 1980’s, it ensured everything was in place to establish Shafer Vineyards as one of the very best wineries in California. Renowned wine critic Robert Parker says they are “One of the world’s greatest wineries”. Shafer’s ethos is small and family orientated, the approach to the wines European. They are one of the few wineries to have a barrel cellar cut into the hillside behind the winery. In the cellar the only wood is in the barrels, everywhere else stainless steel is used to reduce the incidence of TCA. 

The vineyards are managed sustainably, without the need for chemical fertilisers or pesticides, and drip irrigation (common throughout California) is used. Birds of prey (Red-Shouldered hawks) are encouraged to help with the gophers. Warm days and cool nights followed by morning fog encourages elegance in the wines. They now organically farm around 130 ha across Napa; drip irrigation is used with care on a vine-by-vine basis using rainwater from their reservoirs which fill up between November and April. The iconic Cabernet Sauvignon, Hillside Select, is produced from vineyards surrounding the winery, other notable wines in the Shafer range include One Point Five, TD-9 and the Red Shoulder Chardonnay.