Shafer Hillside Select Napa Red Blend

The 2015 Hillside Select is a classic, balanced, powerful Cabernet Sauvignon sourced from our rugged hillside vineyards in Napa Valley’s Stags Leap District.

“The 2015 vintage gave us smaller berries packed with an immensity of pure, opulent aromas and flavors. This rich, polished hillside Cabernet Sauvignon overflows with briary black fruit, juicy black cherry, racy dried cranberry, black licorice, and freshly cracked pepper with elegant touches of cedar, baking spice, and wet stone. The finish is generous and persistent, while the tannins are ripe and integrated offering both a pleasurable experience now and the kind of structure that promises even more beauty with time.”

— Elias Fernandez, winemaker

Reviews

“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.”

— Lisa Perrotti-Brown, Wine Advocate

“Rich and voluptuous on the palate, with no hard edges at all, the 2015 is a prototypical Hillside Select built on volume. Inky blue/purplish fruit, graphite and chocolate give the wine much of its flamboyant personality, but there is plenty of tannin lurking beneath the fruit as well … hugely promising at this early stage and a fabulous wine by any measure.”

— Antonio Galloni, Vinous

“There’s an intensely ripe, fresh and vibrant edge to this focused, elegant and assertively pure cabernet that delivers attractive blueberry and cassis aromas in stylish form. The palate arrives as a precise and focused suite of ripe blueberry and blackberry flavors, building smoothly to an attractively crisp and even-paced finish. Another superb edition of this wine.”

— James Suckling, JamesSuckling.com

"Monumental from the very first sniff: Lifted black licorice, star anise, toasted caraway seeds, and plum-spice cake lead to a palate dripping with sweet, generous fruit—plums, blackberries, mulberries, huckleberries—as well as blueberries, purple-blossomed flowers, Chinese five-spice powder, and gunflint minerality. This is so generous and ripe, yet kept in check by serious structure that, though it’s totally irresistible right now, will carry this through the next 25 years or more. But I wouldn’t be able to wait that long."

— Brian Freedmann, Food & Wine