If you’ve heard disparaging remarks about the 2003 vintage Cabernets from the Napa Valley, I’ve got three strong reasons for you to take them with a really, really big grain of salt.
My working assumption about the vintage is that those who find it underwhelming are lovers of massive wines with the proverbial gobs of fruit, mouth-searing tannins, and so forth. I’m sometimes impressed by wines of this type. However, I think it a higher achievement in Napa to produce a wine that will show–at three years of age–lots of intricate aromatic and flavor details as well as fine structural symmetry between fruit, tannin, wood and acidity.
Getting concentrated fruit in young Napa Cabs is not difficult. Getting perfect balance and lots of little nuances is much more impressive to me. And if such wines can also stand the test of time and develop even more complexity over the years, well, that is what greatness in Napa Cabs means to me.
Nobody in Napa has a better record than Warren Winiarski and his Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars of turning out Cabs that combine
complexity and structural stylishness with longevity. And nobody has a better record of achieving excellence in iffy growing seasons, as was proved by the amazing 1998s from Stag’s Leap.
So it was with considerable anticipation that I pried my way into Winiarski’s top three bottlings from 2003 two nights ago. And the results? One was excellent, one was superb, and one was downright extraordinary. Here are my reviews, in ascending order:
Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, Napa Valley (California) Fay 2003 ($80): This is a delicious, beautifully balanced wine from the Fay 
Vineyard with excellent integration of its various components. A sober assessment compels me to conclude that there simply isn’t enough depth or dimension to the wine for it to achieve greatness even with further ageing, but the fact remains that it is delicious already and very versatile as it stands. Lovely fruit notes of dark cherries are accented with interesting notes of vanilla and subtle woodsmoke. The soft, fine-grained tannins are just right for lending structure to fruit of this modest weight. 90
Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, Napa Valley (California) S.L.V. 2003 ($110): This gorgeous wine sourced from particular blocks within a famous single vineyard is remarkably complex at this 
early age. The core of fruit is deeply flavored and very expressive in both aroma and flavor, and yet the fruit notes never seem chunky or obvious. They show dark berry and black cherry notes that seem pure and fresh, but every sniff and sip seems to show several other fascinating accents (fresh meat, chocolate, smoke, mushrooms and cedar) that I’d be more accustomed to finding in a much older wine. 94
Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, Napa Valley (California) ‘Cask 23’ 2003 ($175): Yes, this is painfully expensive, but yes, this is a 2003 that could make you take a hammer to your piggy bank. 
It was fantastic from the first sip immediately after I popped the cork, and even better 24 hours later, showing no degradation but even more complexity. The fruit is remarkably vivid and expressive despite moderate weight, with bright notes of blackberries and black cherries but also a red fruit note that pops up repeatedly. A whole host of little nuances surround the core of fruit, and the wood and tannin are perfectly weighted and seamlessly integrated. Complete and convincing in every respect, with impressive length but without a lot of extraneous weight, this is a thing of beauty. 97
Congratulations to Warren Winiarski and winemaker Nicki Pruss for these exemplary efforts!
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