Stags' Leap Winery, Cabernet Sauvignon 2018

Stags’ Leap Winery can be confused with its more recent but better-known neighbour Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars (note the apostrophes, their position the result of a 1980s trademark dispute). The latter found fame in the 1976 Paris tasting, but the former has a far more colourful history, of fin-de-siècle extravagance and fortunes made and lost over 150 years of west coast history. Stags’ Leap today is owned by Treasury Wine Estates, its dramatic and reputedly haunted stone castle on the hill still very much occupied. The winery, under French winemaker Christophe Paubert, is well-known for its elegant Petite Sirah, a variety that is now hardly grown in Napa. Its Cabernets are renowned for their elegance and freshness, and this 125^th anniversary cuvée (the first vintage was 1893) is a brilliant example. The nose is instantly beguiling, open and fresh with blueberry and distinct savoury notes and a topnote of violet perfume. On the palate there’s licorice and menthol, herbal notes, sage, and that same blueberry fruit. The tannins are mouthwatering, dry and precise but washed with juice and complemented with brisk acidity. A wine in the classic Bordeaux tradition, the tannins contained but persistant, the whole lean and fresh and linear with a wonderful dry finish drenched with juice. Fresh and charming now, this will age beautifully for years.

2022-2032