1997 Cabernet Sauvignon Stag's Leap Vineyard
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Tasting notes
This has really settled down and morphed into a dynamic, complex and complete tasting experience. The wine is intense and concentrated, balanced and rich, with nuances on the palate that hold through from start to finish. At 20 years of age, this is probably fully mature, but should provide great drinking for at least another decade or longer.
Critic scores
Average Score
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
Jeff Leve, The Wine Cellar Insider
More reviews and scores
The 1997 Shafer Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select is a relatively evolved style for Hillside Select and seemingly more advanced than the older vintages, such as 1995 and 1994. Nevertheless, there is plenty to excite. It’s a big wine, dense purple in color with some lightening at the edge, plenty of crème de cassis fruit, lead pencil shavings, sweet vanilla and earth. It is very ripe, full-bodied, opulent and voluptuously textured. This is terrific stuff, hedonistic, showing secondary/tertiary nuances in the aromatics and essentially a full resolution of the tannin. This wine also seems to have come into its own and is clearly at its peak of flavor. Drink it over the next 10-15 years.
Deep crimson, with some evolution at the rim. Cassis. Supple. Sweet. Explosive. Big, round, supple, and velvety.
Full medium ruby. Aromas of plum, chocolate and tobacco leaf, plus a note of scotch from the wood. Dense and layered, with truffle and oak components and a suggestion of wet wood. I get ripe fruit here, but also a nagging green quality that dries the finish.
About the producer
The site of Shafer has been around since 1880, and grapes continued to be grown here, even during prohibition. It is said that some wine was made here during that time. In 1972, John Shafer bought the property in the Stag’s Leap district, he immediately began planting the Cabernet on the hillside.