99 points,

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, December 2000

Is the prodigious 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select a perfect wine? Bottled in June, 2000, this effort is about as spectacular as Cabernet Sauvignon can be. The soaring bouquet of sweet, lavishly rich black currants, plums, cherries, toast, minerals, and smoke cascades from the glass. Opaque purple-colored, extraordinarily intense, and full-bodied, yet amazingly well-balanced, this flawless Cabernet Sauvignon will be at its peak between now and 2030. One of the greatest young Cabernet Sauvignons I have ever tasted, it represents the quintessential Napa Cabernet, combining both elegance and power.

96 points,

Wine Enthusiast, December 2001

Fabulous. Dominated now by oak, from the smoky charry aroma to the sappy, sweet flavor. If you chew on it, you find absolutely brilliant blackberry fruit, ripe and pure. Breathtaking structure, with near perfect creamy tannins and soft but supportive acidity...

97 points,

Wine Spectator, October 2000

Dense, rich and concentrated, packed with black cherry, blackberry and currant flavors, picking up a pencil lead, mocha and anise edge before the tannins weigh in. A massive wine...

About Winery

Shafer Vineyards traces its beginnings to 1972 when John Shafer left a 23-year career in the publishing industry and, with his family, moved to the Napa Valley to pursue a second career in wine. After purchasing a 210-acre estate in Napa Valley's Stags Leap District, the Shafer family faced the arduous task of replanting the existing vineyards, which dated to the 1920s, and terracing the steep and rocky hillsides, eventually expanding vineyard acreage to its current 50 acres.Evolving from grape growers to vintners, the Shafers crushed their first Cabernet grapes in 1978 and began construction on their winery a year later.

The first Shafer Cabernet became a benchmark, winning the acclaimed San Francisco Vintners Club taste-off upon release and, over a decade later taking first place in an international blind tasting held in Germany, where it outranked such wines as Chateau Margaux, Chateau Latour and Chateau Palmer.

Doug Shafer became winemaker in 1983 after graduating from the University of California at Davis with a degree in enology and viticulture. A year later Elias Fernandez joined the winery as assistant winemaker. Together Doug and Elias have worked closely to forge the Shafer style of quality, consistency and elegance.

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