Description

Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Fay Vineyard Stag’s Leap District 2019

95 pts – James Suckling

Concentrated, with lots of black and purple fruit and crushed violets. Broodingly dark and youthful at this stage, but remains elegant. Fleshy, dense and full-bodied with a mouthful of finely polished tannins that dissipate into the black fruit. Silky, opulent texture here, with fresh, medium acidity.

93 pts – Wine Spectator

Packed with bramble, blackberry and black currant pâte de fruit notes, this has good energy, while lacings of licorice and mocha fill out the finish. Lots of immediate appeal here, but there’s no rush. 

92 pts – Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate

The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Fay Vineyard offers a perfumed nose marked by delicate purple raspberry notes and a touch more herbal, tea-like nuances than the 2018. It’s medium to full-bodied in the mouth but delicate and elegant, with a long, silky finish. Best After 2022. Rating: 92+

The FAY vineyard is where the Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars story began. Established by pioneering grape grower Nathan Fay in 1961, it was the first planting of Cabernet Sauvignon in what is now the Stags Leap District. At the time, conventional wisdom maintained that the area was too cool for Cabernet Sauvignon. But tasting Nathan Fay’s homemade Cabernet in 1969 was a defining moment for the founder of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. Here was land capable of producing a wine that could rival the best in the world. Within a year an adjoining ranch, now known as S.L.V., was purchased.  And, in 1986, the winery purchased Nathan Fay’s vineyard and named it FAY in his honor. The first vintage of a single vineyard FAY Cabernet Sauvignon was 1990.

Vineyard & Winemaking

FAY vineyard remains one the great Napa Valley vineyards, producing fruit with an abundance of supple red and black berry character, voluptuous perfume and a luscious, fine-grained texture. The grapes were sourced from Blocks 4, 3B, 8, 6, 3A, 5A, which combined, give the wine its classic red-fruit tones and aromatic top notes as well as its structure. When the various lots are blended and aged in French oak barrels, the resulting wine gives us the classic expression that is a hallmark of our estategrown Cabernet Sauvignon, “an iron fist in a velvet glove.” With this vintage, Winemaker Marcus Notaro used careful barrel selection to marry the unique characters of FAY vineyard to the barrel type and toast level to further enhance the fruit in the wine. The wine was aged for 21 months in new French oak. In addition, he added 1.5% Cabernet Franc to the blend which adds an accent of blueberry spice. This is the second crop of Cabernet Franc, which replaced the Petite Verdot that was originally planted in FAY.