Shafer Vineyards

Shafer Vineyards is one of the most consistently excellent wineries in Napa Valley, an estate that has produced world-class Cabernet Sauvignon from the Stags Leap District for over five decades without a single off year. The story begins in 1972, when John Shafer, a publishing executive from Chicago, left his corporate career at age 49 to pursue winemaking in Napa Valley. He purchased a 210-acre hillside property on the eastern slope of the Stags Leap District and began the backbreaking work of clearing, terracing, and planting a vineyard that would become one of the most acclaimed in the world.

The estate encompasses 200 acres of vineyard, including the legendary Hillside Select block, a steep, south-facing slope that produces the most concentrated and age-worthy Cabernet Sauvignon in the Shafer portfolio. The hillside vineyard's rocky, volcanic soils and extreme sun exposure create conditions of natural stress that produce tiny berries of extraordinary intensity. The estate also includes vineyards on the valley floor for the One Point Five Cabernet and in Carneros for the Red Shoulder Ranch Chardonnay, providing fruit for a diverse portfolio built around the Hillside Select core.

Winemaker Elias Fernandez has been making the Shafer wines since 1984, one of the longest tenures of any winemaker in Napa Valley. His consistency is remarkable: the Hillside Select has been one of the top five or ten Cabernets in the valley for over 35 consecutive vintages, earning scores above 95 points with a regularity that borders on the monotonous. Fernandez's style emphasizes purity of fruit and seamless integration, producing wines that are both powerful and graceful. The One Point Five Cabernet, the estate's "second wine," is so good that many producers would proudly claim it as their flagship.

Tastings at Shafer are by appointment only and limited to small groups, reflecting the family's preference for quality over quantity in every aspect of the operation. The experience includes a tour of the hillside vineyard, where the dramatic terrain and volcanic soils are visible and palpable, followed by a seated tasting of the current portfolio including, when available, the Hillside Select. The $95 tasting fee is substantial but justified by the caliber of what is poured and the intimacy of the experience.

Shafer's significance to Napa Valley lies in the standard it sets. John Shafer proved that a career-changer with no wine background could build one of the world's great estates through sheer determination and good judgment, and Elias Fernandez proved that consistency is not the enemy of excellence but its truest expression. Hillside Select is not just a great wine; it is one of the most reliable great wines in the world, a bottle that rewards trust with quality vintage after vintage.