Shafer Hillside Select 2017

In the running for the wine of the vintage, the 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select is an incredible success and offers more depth, opulence, and purity than just about every other wine out there. Revealing a dense purple color as well as a killer nose of blueberries, chocolate-covered cherries, scorched earth, tobacco, violets, and exotic spices, it hits the palate with full-bodied richness, a seamless, pure, incredibly layered mouthfeel, building tannins, and a great, great finish. As with most top 2017s, it stays tight and compact on the palate, with notable structure and impressive concentration. It has some up-front appeal given its purity of fruit and balance, yet it's going to take 7-8 years to hit prime time and will be a long-lived bottle of Napa Cabernet. Hats off to Doug Shafer and the team for yet another magical Cabernet Sauvignon!

Wild blackberries and brambleberries on the nose with raw cocoa, cloves and crushed gravel. Violets and orange peel, too. It’s medium-bodied with wonderful purity and depth of fruit, interlaced with dark-chocolate flavors. Firm, well-integrated tannins. Complex and refined with fantastic energy. One of the finest Hillside Selects I have had. Better from 2024.

Made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select displays a deep garnet-purple color, bursting from the glass with scents of blueberry pie, crème de cassis, black cherry compote and chocolate box plus nuances of cedar chest, clove oil, lavender and menthol. The richly fruited, full-bodied palate has a lively skip in its step, featuring gorgeous ripe, velvety tannins and fantastic freshness to support all the spicy black fruit layers, finishing long and perfumed. An absolute triumph! Rating: 98+

The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select is a wine of extraordinary beauty. The purity of the flavors is simply striking, but what really stands out is the wine's mind-blowing balance and total sense of harmony. An exotic mélange of inky blue/purplish fruit, spice, new leather, lavender and licorice build as this sumptuous, dazzling Cabernet Sauvignon shows off its alluring personality. In a word: magnificent!

Ripe, warm and alluring in feel, with a velvety texture, the core dripping with cassis, plum reduction and melted red licorice notes. The long finish moves slowly while maintaining definition, with subtle black tea and sage hints peeking in, adding range and intrigue. Should age nicely. Best from 2021 through 2038.

Having spent three years in barrel, this 100% varietal wine (from the producer’s famous hillside) is brawny in concentrated black fruit, Christmas spice and thick, firm tannin. A dusty thread of crushed rock, black licorice and flint provide exotic accents to the velvety thick grip. This will do well over time; enjoy best from 2025–2030.

John Shafer helped define the voice of Stags Leap District cabernet sauvignon with the early releases from the knolls he and his son, Doug, planted under the escarpment in southeastern Napa Valley. The first release, from 1978, was dark, layered and rich, soft enough that people questioned him about how much merlot there was in the blend. The cabernet went on to become a cult phenomenon in the 1990s, and Elias Fernandez, who has made the wine since the early 1980s, continued to push the limits of richness and ripeness, even as his other cabernet (One Point Five) remained relatively restrained. While we regularly recommend One Point Five, our panels have passed on the recent releases of Hillside Select since 2010. Then this 2014 came along, integrated in its richness, merlot-like in its graceful power, with zesty fruit one panelist described as “fresh crushed marionberries and blackberries.” That freshness was still intact three days later, the fruit lasting as it infused the tannins with color. If you loved the early vintages of Hillside Select (think 1978 or 1991 for two great examples), and even if you loved the most recent heady styles, this is a 2014 you’ll want in your cellar.