2016 Shafer Vineyards Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon Stags Leap District Napa Valley is sold out.

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The Greatest Hillside Select Ever: Do You Have It?

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  • 100 pts Jeb Dunnuck
    100 pts Jeb Dunnuck
  • 100 pts Wine Advocate
    100 pts RPWA
  • 100 pts Vinous
    100 pts Vinous
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2016 Shafer Vineyards Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon Stags Leap District Napa Valley 750 ml

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  • Curated by unrivaled experts
  • Choose your delivery date
  • Temperature controlled shipping options
  • Get credited back if a wine fails to impress

Shafer: Simply Better Than Ever

To borrow from the writer Steven Pressfield: The true greats never have to show off—but every once in a while, they’ll throw down a 360-degree tomahawk jam, just to remind the boys they’re still in business.

That’s exactly what the 2016 Shafer Vineyards Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon does: With THREE 100-point scores coming from the toughest voices in the game—Antonio Galloni of Vinous, Jeb Dunnuck, and Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate—this is far more than Shafer reminding everyone that they’re still around. This is an icon showing the world that they’re better than ever. 

“This is a wine we’ll be talking about in the 2050’s,” our Master Sommelier Sur Lucero said. For the serious California collector, Hillside Select is a cellar staple in any vintage, but the 2016 takes “must-have” to a new level. It’s “pure perfection,” in the eyes of Jeb Dunnuck. Galloni called it “a wine of extraordinary beauty,” and Wine Advocate called it “thrillingly hedonic and perfectly poised.” We’re thrilled to deliver it to you, straight from the Shafer cellars in Stags Leap District, always with perfect provenance. 

A glass of the 2016 Hillside Select reveals an opaque purple-black core, with a nose featuring a dark, mysterious center of crushed bramble fruit, burnt incense, fresh licorice, new leather, and sweet pipe tobacco. The incredibly fine tannins do a fantastic job of reining in this immense wine, and its palate of dark fruit, chocolate, bay leaf, cedar plank, and pencil lead woven with gravel, turned earth, and blueberry compote. Everything is fresh, everything is present, and everything is in proportion on a succulent, long-lasting finish that will evolve in the coming decades.

Hillside Select began nearly 40 years ago, when founder John Shafer and his son Doug began re-working the amphitheater of vines that surrounded their winery. Now a collection of 14 small, rugged, arid vineyard blocks, the ground that produces Hillside Select is poorly nourished and watered, and produces small yields of tiny, blueberry-sized grapes. The result is an intensely colored and flavored Cabernet that stands with the greatest in the world, bar none.

The 2016 came from vineyard blocks including Sunspot, John’s Upper 7, Venado Ilegal, and Firebreak. The berries were picked into small bins so as to arrive at the winery intact, then sorted meticulously. The stems were removed with a cage sized specifically for the tiny hillside berries, and once they were vinified, they went into a selection of tight-grain French oak, the most aromatic barrels having been selected by winemaker Elias Fernandez.

After 32 months in 100% new French oak and another year in bottle, the 2016 Hillside Select is ready to show its stuff. This is one of the all-time greats, so don’t miss it.