SKU: 03817

Shafer Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon 2015

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Category	Red Wine
Varietal	Cabernet Sauvignon
Origin	California, Napa Valley, Stags Leap District
Brand	Shafer
Alcohol/vol	15.5%

Other vintages

Shafer Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon 2019

Shafer Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon 2018

Shafer Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon 2017

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.

The Hillside Select is made of 100% Cabernet Sauvignon sourced from Shafer's rugged hillside vineyards in Napa Valley’s Stags Leap District. On release the wine offers rich elegance, youthful exuberance, and fine balance introducing itself with enticing, vivid aromatics. In the glass you’ll find complex flavors of blackberry, cassis, black cherry, dark chocolate, smoke, spice, savory herbs and a touch of vanilla. The tannins are ripe offering refined texture, holding out great promise for decades of cellar age. Considered by Shafer to be a "wine of a place," in the European sense of the word, this Cabernet exemplifies the richness and suppleness consistently produced in the heart of Stags Leap District. Hillside Select is aged a full four years prior to release (three years in Alliers and Tronçais oak barrels and 15 months in the bottle). While enjoyable today, this wine will gain richness and maturity with up to 20 years of careful cellaring.

Wine Advocate

wa98+

Very deep purple-black in color, the 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select comes bounding out of the glass with gregarious scents of crème de cassis, warm black cherries, plum preserves and Indian spices with hints of lilacs, garrigue, stewed tea and cigar box plus a waft of charcuterie. Full-bodied, rich, boldly fruited and wildly decadent, it has a rock-solid frame of grainy tannins and compelling freshness, finishing with loads of earthy and savory layers.

October 2018

Jeb Dunnuck

jd98

I was able to taste four vintages of the estate's flagship Cabernet Sauvignon, their Hillside Select. This first growth-like cuvée was first made in 1978 and always comes from their estate Hillside Vineyard just above their estate in Stags Leap. This is a 54-acre south-facing, amphitheater-like vineyard of thin, rocky, volcanic soils. Today the cuvée is always 100% Cabernet Sauvignon that spends upwards of 32 months in new French oak. It is consistently one of the greatest Cabernet Sauvignons in the world. Starting with their 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select, it boasts a deep, saturated purple hue as well as a heavenly bouquet of sweet blueberry and cassis fruits interwoven with plenty of graphite, tobacco, and lead pencil notes, with ample minerality emerging with time in the glass. This was a hot, low-yielding vintage for Napa, and while this beauty is massively concentrated, it's also silky and seamless, with great tannins, no sense of over-ripeness or heaviness, and a finish that goes on for nearly a minute. This is a brilliant, incredibly sexy wine to enjoy over the coming 30-40 years.

January 31, 2020

Wine Enthusiast

we96

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.

May 1, 2020

Vinous

The 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select is a total knock-out. Given the heat and tiny yields of the year, one might reasonably expect a big wine; this, however, has really grown into an elegant, polished Cabernet. Silky, perfumed and rich, the 2015 is exquisitely beautiful, super-elegant and expressive. Gorgeous dark red/purplish fruit, floral and spice inflections lead into the beautifully persistent finish.

January 2020