Shafer Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon 2001

The 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select is a potentially perfect wine in the making. A skyscraper that builds in the mouth with multiple dimensions, amazing layers of flavor, great delicacy, and tremendous purity, this inky purple-colored Cabernet offers extraordinarily pure creme de cassis notes intermixed with crushed rocks, flowers, sweet oak, an amazingly powerful yet impeccably balanced mid-palate, and a sweet, 70-second finish. This prodigious Cabernet Sauvignon is about as good as Cabernet can be.

I had the pleasure of drinking this wine with John Shafer at a wine dinner last year at the Four Seasons restaurant. This wine is silk on the palate - unbelievable. Tannin structure is strong but not overpowering. Complex tastes of chocolate, dark fruit but oh, that silkiness just keeps you coming back.

October 2007

Now come the Napa Valley blockbusters from the vaunted 2001 vintage. The big boys are breaking out their big wines after cellaring them all these months and here comes one of them. Shafer’s Cabernet Sauvignon, from its famous estate Hillside Vineyard is one of the stars - as you’d expect - of the vintage. As with many of the wines in the post-phylloxera era, this wine is made to drink now what with its soft, toasty, chocolate-y aromas. But if one is fortunate enough to have more than one bottle, it will evolve and improve over the next 15 years because there’s a backbone here of silken tannins and read more...tar that portends longevity. This 100 percent Cabernet was aged 32 months in new French barrels. The listed alcohol is 14.9 percent and there were but 2,500 cases produced. The price is a whopping $175, but some might think it’s worth every penny because this is playing with the Big Boys.    (hide)

Now come the Napa Valley blockbusters from the vaunted 2001 vintage. The big boys are breaking out their big wines after cellaring them all these months and here comes one of them. Shafer’s Cabernet Sauvignon, from its famous estate Hillside Vineyard is one of the stars – as you’d expect – of the vintage. As with many of the wines in the post-phylloxera era, this wine is made to drink now what with its soft, toasty, chocolate-y aromas. But if one is fortunate enough to have more than one bottle, it will evolve and improve over the next 15 years because there’s a backbone here of silken tannins read more...and tar that portends longevity. This 100 percent Cabernet was aged 32 months in new French barrels. The listed alcohol is 14.9 percent and there were but 2,500 cases produced. The price is a whopping $175, but some might think it’s worth every penny because this is playing with the Big Boys.    (hide)

October 2008

Rating: 95(+?) - As reviewed by International Wine Cellar in Issue 126, May/June 2006 ($175) Saturated ruby. Brooding, pure aromas of cassis, dark chocolate, tobacco, smoke and licorice. Conveys a powerful impression of solidity, and yet the very primary flavors of dark berries, bitter chocolate, graphite, tar and minerals are also quite fresh. This unfolds slowly and builds impressively on the back half, finishing quite suave and fresh. The tannins are firm but not stern, and the persistent fruit flavors are red and quite bright. Possesses a superb structure for long aging in bottle. Expect this one to evolve for 15 to 20 years. A great Napa Valley cabernet, but in need of at read more...least a few years of cellaring.    (hide)

In stock limited

February 2009