Our Provenance Guarantee
Purchase with confidence. All of our wines are selectively sourced and thoroughly inspected for authenticity and signs of poor storage. Accepted bottles are preserved in our climate-controlled cellar until they reach your doorstep. We have no storefront and no walk-in traffic, so nothing is moved or handled between inspection and shipping.
The bottle you see photographed is the bottle you receive (or fundamentally identical when multiple bottles are listed), and our commitment to you is that it arrives as represented. If it doesn’t, we want to hear from you.
Ratings & Tasting Notes:
92.1 points — CellarTracker community average, 103 reviews
A member tasting it in September 2024 scored it 98 points, calling it about as good as it gets for classic-style Napa Cabernet and aged to the height of perfection. He describes a nose of cedary graphite, sandalwood and dark berry fruit, with a base of inky brooding fruit on the palate, dusty tannins and sweet oak seasoned by whisky barrel, leafy herbs and lemon rind, winding down through a long conclusion — noting it required three hours and a decant to fully open, and pairing it with beef Wellington.
A 2022 note at 94 points records a beautiful showing, very clean and deep, with pure Cabernet fruit, and remarks that blind tasters narrowed its origin down to Stags Leap.
A March 2026 note at 94 points describes a balanced, big wine with no hint of alcohol, moderate berry fruit and a complexity still expanding to the last drop, observing that it has aged.
Cult Wines International Notes:
Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars was founded in 1970, when Warren Winiarski bought a 44-acre block in what is now the Stags Leap District after tasting a homemade wine from his neighbour Nathan Fay’s vineyard. The old Petite Sirah and Alicante Bouschet were replaced with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, and the parcel was renamed Stag’s Leap Vineyard, or S.L.V. Six years later the winery achieved something close to legend: three-year-old vines from the 1973 harvest produced a wine that bested several of Bordeaux’s greatest growths in the 1976 blind tasting now known as the Judgment of Paris. That result put California on the world’s winemaking map, and the house style — richness held within elegant restraint, often described as an iron fist in a velvet glove — has been the reference for the district ever since.
S.L.V. remains the estate’s founding vineyard and the source of its most historically significant wine, planted on volcanic soils at the foot of the Stags Leap palisades. The 2005 is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, aged 24 months in 43% new French oak at 14.5% alcohol. The winery’s own account describes a wine that rewards patience in the glass: dark fruit and floral aromas opening into an earthy hint of rosemary and black truffle, with dark cherry, blueberry and plum joining cocoa powder and spiced vanilla, building in richness through a long, smooth finish. 2005 was a cool, long growing season in Napa, giving wines of structure and freshness rather than overt power, and at twenty-one years this is drinking in mature territory.
Bottle Size:
750 mL
Storage History:
Always stored on its side in a climate-controlled cellar.
Condition:
Outstanding condition.
Please note: The condition of the bottle you will receive is accurately reflected by the one shown in the images.
