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 Vintage1998 Label 1 of 58 
TypeRed
ProducerStag's Leap Wine Cellars (web)
VarietyMerlot
Designationn/a
Vineyardn/a
CountryUSA
RegionCalifornia
SubRegionNapa Valley
AppellationNapa Valley

Drinking Windows and Values
Drinking window: Drink between 2004 and 2009 (based on 105 user opinions)
Wine Market Journal quarterly auction price: See Stag`s Leap Wine Cellars Merlot on the Wine Market Journal.

Community Tasting History

Community Tasting Notes (average 89.4 pts. and median of 89 pts. in 6 notes) - hiding notes with no text

 Tasted by cono_sur on 12/22/2012 & rated 90 points: Lots of smoke and oak aromas, with undertones of dark fruit. Full-bodied and fruit forward with violets and mocha. Spicy mid-palate. Long finish. (2687 views)
 Tasted by The Raven on 12/17/2010 & rated 92 points: Really enjoyed the smokey flavor and the nice bouquet of fruit. Really enjoyed this bottle of wine. (3415 views)
 Tasted by MGL Wine on 3/23/2008 & rated 89 points: wonderfull with food (lamb), a bit tight to drink on its own. Not much complexity, but loved the forward fruit and firm tannins that held up well to a rich meal. (3913 views)
 Tasted by jcbrand on 12/25/2007 & rated 89 points: Good cherry fruit on the palate, nice acidity, mellow, could age a couple more years... (3857 views)
 Tasted by Paul from the Oblong Table on 6/13/2005: Drinkable every night bottle--mid-range, mid-taste. Boy, am I spoiled! (2681 views)

CellarTracker Wiki Articles (login to edit | view all articles)

Stag's Leap Wine Cellars

Producer website
NOTE: This is easily confused with Stags' Leap Winery, but Stag's Leap Wine Cellars is a different winery. Stag's Leap Wine Cellars is considered one of Napa Valley's first-growths. "We were founded by Warren Winiarski and his family in 1970 and are best known for our estate-grown Cabernet Sauvignons — CASK 23, S.L.V., and FAY. Over the years, our wines have become some of the most highly regarded and collected wines worldwide. They are fashioned to express classic elegance, structure, and ageability, and to reflect the place in which they are grown." Stag's Leap Wine Cellars was known only in the Napa Valley until the now-famous 1976 Paris Tasting, when Winiarski's 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon, the first wine produced at the new winery, bested four top-ranked Bordeaux entries, including first-growths Château Mouton-Rothschild and Château Haut-Brion. The tasting landed Stag's Leap Wine Cellars squarely among the ranks of the world's most noteworthy Cabernet producers and placed Winiarski among the ranks of world's most respected winemakers. It also fundamentally transformed how Californian wines were viewed worldwide [StagsLeap See details here].

Merlot

Merlot is a dark blue–colored wine grape variety, that is used as both a blending grape and for varietal wines. The name Merlot is thought to be a diminutive of merle, the French name for the blackbird, probably a reference to the color of the grape. Its softness and "fleshiness", combined with its earlier ripening, makes Merlot a popular grape for blending with the sterner, later-ripening Cabernet Sauvignon, which tends to be higher in tannin.

USA

American wine has been produced since the 1500s, with the first widespread production beginning in New Mexico in 1628. Today, wine production is undertaken in all fifty states, with California producing 84% of all U.S. wine. The continent of North America is home to several native species of grape, including Vitis labrusca, Vitis riparia, Vitis rotundifolia, and Vitis vulpina, but the wine-making industry is based almost entirely on the cultivation of the European Vitis vinifera, which was introduced by European settlers. With more than 1,100,000 acres (4,500 km2) under vine, the United States is the fourth-largest wine producing country in the world, after Italy, Spain, and France.

California

2021 vintage: "Unlike almost all other areas of the state, the Russian River Valley had higher than normal crops in 2021, which has made for a wine of greater generosity and fruit forwardness than some of its stablemates." - Morgan Twain-Peterson

Napa Valley

Napa Valley Wineries and Wine (Napa Valley Vintners)

Napa Valley

St. Helena

 
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