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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Stags Leap, Stags' Leap, or Stag's Leap: What's the difference
No, it isn’t a typographical error, and there really are three distinct entities bearing these strikingly similar names. The first of the names refers to the Stags Leap District, our designated American Viticultural Area (AVA); the second refers to our neighbor, Stags’ Leap Winery; and the third refers to us, Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. The differences go beyond the location or the absence of the apostrophe.
Sculpting the Vine: To Build Great Wine
Each January, our vineyard crew returns from their holidays anticipating the pruning season. Marcos Guzman, Salvador Solario, and Jesus Valdez stand in the leafless vineyard, arms folded, breath steaming in the cold air. As the men look out over the bare vines, each wearing his pruning shears in a sheath, the importance of their job is on their minds. Soon, they will begin pruning and shaping the vines to restrict vigor and create balance, setting the stage for ideal growing conditions.
The Judgment of Paris
Food-and-wine critic Anthony Dias Blue has called it “the most talked about wine tasting of the twentieth century.” It was the famed Paris Tasting of 1976, when two then unknown California wines bested the best of French wines in a blind tasting in Paris. The winning red wine was the Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars 1973 S.L.V. Cabernet Sauvignon.
Preserving History: Recorking the 1973 S.L.V.
The founder of Stag's Leap Wine Cellars visited the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History on October 18, 2005 to recork the Stag's Leap Wine Cellars 1973 S.L.V. Cabernet Sauvignon that took top honors in the 1976 Paris Tasting, one of the two bottles of wine that the museum collected in 1996 on the twentieth anniversary of the Judgment of Paris.
The President of Poland Visits Stag's Leap Wine Cellars
On Sunday, September 11, 2005, His Excellency Aleksander Kwasniewski, the president of Poland, and First Lady Jolanta Kwasniewska joined the founder of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars whose family immigrated to the United States from Poland, for a luncheon at the winery’s FAY lake.
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.
