2017 Shafer Vineyards One Point Five Cabernet Sauvignon Stags Leap District 750 ml

In Napa Valley, magnificent wines are many, but icons are few—and Shafer is an icon. The wines have taken home Wine Spectator’s Wine of the Year title, been served at the White House, and lauded by Robert Parker as holding to “first-growth standards.”

The 2017 Shafer One Point Five Cabernet Sauvignon is the kind of wine that built the legend. 

Crafted from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon grown at Shafer’s Stags Leap District estate, it shows a brooding purple-black color, and boasts perfectly ripe currant, blackberry, and blueberry aromas supported by an array of mocha, tilled earth, exotic spice, and toasted oak notes. Full-bodied, expansive, and complex, with toasted mocha flavors and a frame of towering, well-incorporated tannins melting into a long and lingering finish, the 2017 oozes all the power, grace, and length of a Shafer classic.

“Top quality, as every bottle, every year,” commented one of the Wine Access members who made our first offer of One Point Five a sellout, and to that review we’ll add one thing: In Napa Valley, where iconic wines are almost always accompanied by staggering prices, Shafer One Point Five is the rarest kind of famous name—one that still presents fantastic value for a two-digit price.  

Shafer’s history is already the stuff of Napa Valley lore, but it took on a special meaning when we visited the estate, and winemaker Elias Fernandez poured us back vintages of One Point Five (the 2004 was positively stunning after 15 years). As we tasted, he and Doug Shafer held court. They told us how in 1972, Doug’s father John, then 48 years old, abandoned a publishing career in Chicago and purchased 209 acres in the Stags Leap District. He ripped out the vines, replanted, and in 1978, Shafer produced its first Cabernet from the estate.

In 1983, John named Doug winemaker, and the next year they hired Elias, the son of a vineyard worker, as assistant winemaker. In 1994, when Doug was promoted to winery president and Elias to winemaker, Shafer really hit its stride: In less than a decade, Elias had been named Food & Wine magazine’s Winemaker of the Year. It’s no coincidence that Robert Parker wrote that “From the early nineties on, especially starting around 1994, the quality of the wines soared to first-growth standards, and have remained there for the last twenty-plus years.”

It’s winery tradition: The founder works tirelessly to get the operation off the ground and set its course, then hands control to the next generation. But because John and Doug Shafer worked so closely for so long, they didn’t think the “second generation” label quite applied. So they named this wine “One Point Five” to symbolize the closeness with which father and son worked. And never before has the name had more meaning, as John Shafer passed away a year ago, at the age of 94. 

Of course, One Point Five is in excellent hands, and its quality is higher than ever. Sourced primarily from two vineyards—the famed Hillside Estate Vineyard that produces Shafer’s flagship Hillside Select, as well as the 25-acre Borderline Vineyard—this 100% Cabernet embodies the Shafer style. It’s ripe, robust, and silky from a long stretch in 100% new French oak barrels. 

Napa Valley icons are rare—and Cabernets of this kind of quality that still bear two-digit price tags are near-impossible to find. We’re thrilled to bring this one to you, and know you’ll be thrilled every time you open a bottle.