I’ll admit it. I’m a terroir junkie, always on the lookout for wines that go beyond varietal character and give me a sense of place, a taste of the earth’s history, whether in the Old World or the New.
Wine grapes can grow just about anywhere plants with leaves survive, but only certain viticultural environments yield wines with a distinctive, striking character that reflects that place. These are rare, especially in the New World, where we’re still discovering what grows best where. But I’m convinced that over the past 30 years, the tiny Stags Leap District in California’s Napa Valley has become one of the world’s sweet spots for Cabernet Sauvignon.
All the district’s Cabs share a specific fruitiness, a black cherries and cassis nose and flavors, but it’s their velvety, supple texture and fine-grained tannins that are particularly remarkable. One of the district’s pioneers, Warren Winiarski, likes to describe this as an “iron fist in a velvet glove.” Or as the district’s new promotional descriptor says, “rock soft.” I think of this character as a paradox from the landscape — softness and structure, elegance and power, tannin without harshness. A far cry from the palate-whacking style of many Napa Valley Cabernets these days, these wines favor polish, beauty and finesse over sheer power.
The Stags Leap District is the smallest of Napa Valley’s AVAs (American Viticultural Area), containing a mere 1350 acres of vineyards tucked into a funnel-shaped corridor one mile wide and three miles long between the Vaca mountains to the east and the Napa River to the west. The district is bisected by the Silverado Trail. The geography, climate and geology of this sub-region is quite different from the rest of the Napa Valley.
The valley floor’s unique soils of bale loam and clay shift sharply to the hillside basalt outcroppings known since the 1880s by the romantic name Stag’s Leap Palisades. These rocks, and the volcanic bedrock formed millions of years ago, reflect and hold the sun’s heat, warming the vineyards quickly so the Cabernet ripens well. Winds from the San Pablo Bay are trapped by the small valley’s topography, providing natural air conditioning to keep the grapes’ acidity.
But just what piece of all this terroir talk matters most to the wines’ character depends on who you talk to.
As he looked for vineyard land during a hot summer in the early 1970s, winemaker Bernard Portet noticed the cooler air each time he drove the Silverado Trail and ended up founding the 150-acre Clos du Val Winery at its southern end. To his French palate, cool air guaranteed freshness and subtlety in the wine as there was in his native Bordeaux.
For Robert Brittan, long-time winemaker at Stags’ Leap Winery further north, the character depends heavily on volcanic bedrock, which holds heat and influences temperature.
For John Shafer, of Shafer Vineyards, it’s the contrast of “warm Rutherford days and cool Carneros nights.”
In other words, no one really knows exactly why the wines taste as they do, in spite of an exhaustive study of the region’s soils to try and discover the science behind the Stags Leap taste and texture.
But Stags Leap has been known as a special place for distinctive Cabernet for decades. Nathan Fay planted the first vines in 1961 despite warnings from the University of California at Davis that it was too cool for the grape variety to ripen. The character of his homemade wines inspired Warren Winiarski to found Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars in the early 1970s. And when Winiarski’s 1973 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars cabernet won over Château Mouton Rothschild and Château Haut Brion at the now famous 1976 Paris Tasting, the name entered public consciousness as a place for quality Cabernet. The award brought instant fame, attracted investment to the region, and sparked litigation over who had the right to label a wine as Stags Leap.
Most of the region’s growers could see the marketing potential of the name on their labels and sought to have Stags Leap District approved by the U.S. government as an official AVA, which finally happened in 1989. In truth, I don’t find the wines from most AVAs have discernable characters; the AVA system isn’t like France’s appellation controllee, which sets forth grape types and production methods that must be used. Stags Leap is different; growers and winemakers alike admit the district is “all about Cabernet,” though many make other wines.
Each winemaker brings his own vision of the best way to grow grapes and transform them into wine, and no decision has more effect than the timing of harvest, because super ripe grapes can obscure differences. “But no matter what you do,” says Doug Fletcher, winemaker at Chimney Rock, “the site is the one element that doesn’t change. You can taste the finer grained tannins in the skins of the grapes and the intensity of the fruit.”
Those grapes ripened from the heat of rocks created millennia ago. I like to remember that as I drink these silky textured wines.
Thirteen producers jointly offer a special Appellation Collection of their latest Cabernets to show wine lovers what’s behind the Stags Leap District name — that’s my idea of a vintner’s dozen. Recently I tasted through the latest edition, adding in a couple of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars wines, which aren’t part of it. None will disappoint, but I find the longer established wineries generally make the most complex and best wines.
2002 Baldacci Family Vineyards Estate Cabernet Sauvignon ($45)
2000 was the first vintage from this district newcomer. Ripe blackberry jam nose and flavors with a ripely fruity, chocolatey finish. Alcohol is 14.9 percent. Not that complex, but the winery bears watching. 88
2002 Chimney Rock Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve ($100)
Made from the best tasting fruit on the estate in each vintage, the reserve has layers of concentrated black fruit and cassis flavors and an elegant spine of tannin. Small percentage of Merlot and Petit Verdot were included. 94
2002 Cliff Lede Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon ($50)
Newcomer Canadian businessman Cliff Lede purchased the winery and vineyards of S. Anderson at the far north end of the district in 2002. The blend is 85 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 11 percent Merlot, 2 percent Cabernet Franc, and 2 percent Malbec. Dark, rich, elegant, but not that complex. 88
2001 Clos du Val Cabernet Sauvignon ‘Oak Vineyard’ ($65)
A classic. Full-bodied and complex, with gorgeous flavors of dark fruit, earth, spice, and minerals, and a supple silky texture. It has a freshness and balance seen in the best vintages in Bordeaux, and at 13.5 percent alcohol is about a degree lower than other bottlings.. A blend of 85 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 15 percent Cabernet Franc. 96
2002 Hartwell Vineyards Estate Cabernet Sauvignon ($115)
This premiere offering from the estate vineyard is very black cherry, cassis, and chocolate, with a particularly perfumed nose and silky texture despite powerful tannins and plenty of toasty oak. 90
2002 Ilsley Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon ($45)
Growers for 50 years, the Ilsley family turned winemakers in 1999; 2000 was their first vintage. This 100 percent hillside-vineyard wine is all baked berries, cocoa, black plums, and oak, with lots of structure but not as fine as the district’s best. 87
2002 Pine Ridge Winery Cabernet Sauvignon ($60)
This blend (86 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 6 percent Petit Verdot, 5 percent Malbec, and 3 percent Merlot) has overtones of blueberry, blackberry, and cherry and has always been particularly open-flavored style, with long fine tannins in the finish. 91
2002 Regusci Winery Cabernet Sauuvignon ($48)
A long-time grower turned winery in 1996. This concentrated blend of Cabernet and a small bit of Merlot has notes of almost over-ripe sweet black cherries, toasty oak, and a very soft texture. Concentrated but not complex. 86
2001 Shafer ‘Hillside Select’ ($175)
Produced from selected blocks of this winery’s steep hillside vineyards, this sought-after cult wine is always one of my favorites. With its smooth, thick, voluptuous texture, intensely concentrated plum and cassis flavors, and fairly high alcohol (14.9 percent), it’s the most powerful and muscular of the Stags Leap wines. 96
2001 Silverado Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon ‘Single-Vineyard Selection’ ($75)
The third Cabernet vineyard planted in the district back in the 1960s, west of Silverado trail, has a definite cassis, dark plum, and chocolate taste, a very silky, elegant texture and a certain pleasing lightness, but not a complex finish. 92
2001 Robert Sinskey Vineyards ‘RSV’ Cabernet Sauvignon ($65)
Very pure tasting, with a nose of dark cherries and flavors of black plums and bittersweet cocoa, this wine from an organically farmed vineyard has a particularly supple texture and a very long, complex finish. It, too, is lower in alcohol, with exceptional balance. 94
2002 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars ‘SLV Estate’ Cabernet Sauvignon ($110)
This vineyard produced the famous Paris Tasting winner, and though it has been replanted, the wines from it still have a savory deep fruit and spice character, a wonderfully expressive perfumed nose, and a deep, rich velvety texture. There’s a tiny percentage of merlot in the blend. 94
2002 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars ‘Cask 23’ ($150)
About 5 percent merlot and a tiny amount of Petit Verdot are added to this very complex, spicy, velvety wine, which is the epitome of the district’s paradox of power and graee. 96
2002 Stags’ Leap Winery Estate Grown ‘The Leap’ Cabernet Sauvignon ($65)
Comes from a special block in their Cabernet vineyard. The winery’s signature briary character comes through. With a softer finish than some others it is almost approachable now. 92
2002 Steltzner Reserve ‘Barrel Select’ Cabernet Sauvignon ($75)
Not made every year, this selection of the best barrels of Cabernet in the cellar has the taste of over-ripe plums and high alcohol (14.8) but the super supple texture and dark cherry character is very apparent. 88
Elin McCoy is a wine and spirits columnist for Bloomberg News and for new global women’s magazine Shattered. Her most recent book, ‘The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the Reign of American Taste,’ has garnered international praise and is nominated for a James Beard award. For 25 years she was contributing editor on wine at Food & Wine Magazine and has freelanced for many other national publications.