Collector’s Corner
Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars
Welcome to the Collector’s Corner, a forum for exchanging information and points of view about our wines, our winemaking and vineyard activities, and our wines at auction.
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The Place Beneath: The "Sweet Spot" of FAY
Over the more than three decades that we have been farming our estate vineyards, we’ve learned that small areas within particular blocks consistently produce grapes with unique qualities of flavor and texture. A case in point is FAY Block 8. In its center is an irregularly shaped "sweet spot" that yields fruit of unusual expressiveness, characterized by voluptuous softness as well as concentration. Over the years this "sweet spot" has been a key component of CASK 23.
The Oak and the Vine
The association of wood and wine goes back a very long time. Herodotus recorded the use of wooden barrels as wine containers as early as seventh centuries B.C., and for most of wine’s history, barrels were the containers of choice for storage and transportation. Over time, winemakers began to also value barrels’ ability to change the taste of the wine inside. Oak barrels came to be favored for imbuing wine with tastes ranging from vanilla, spice, coffee, and caramel to cedar, smoke, and leather.
Size Matters
One reason people love large-format wine bottles is that they look so impressive on the table or displayed in the cellar. But good looks are merely a happy side effect of these super-sized wines’ real advantage: they allow the wines inside to age more slowly.
Estate Wine Library
Visit our Estate Wine Library where we share the original tasting notes from the winery as well as notes and comments from our winemaking team and collectors based on tastings over the years.
