Stag’s Leap Winery

Stag’s Leap Winery produces superb wines, with prices beginning at $32 and topping out at $200-plus a bottle. One of the best ways to learn about this winery-or any winery- is to attend an on-site tasting. But with the country locked down, on-site anything isn’t going to happen any time soon. So to reach their clientele, as well as their potential clientele, the winery has decided to do “virtual” tastings via Instagram. While two of the virtual tastings have aired, there are two more scheduled.

• 4/23: 2018 Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc, 2016 The Leap Estate Cabernet Sauvignon
• 4/30: 2016 Block 20 Merlot, 2015 Audentia Cabernet Sauvignon

Stag’s Leap in Brief

Stag’s Leap Winery in the Stag’s Leap District in the Napa Valley was founded  in 1888 by newlyweds Horace and Mary Chase, together with W.W. Thompson. By 1895, the winery was producing 40,000 gallons of wine. Retail production stopped in 1908, and while the vines continued to be grown and cared for, retail production  didn’t resume until 1972. The timing was good.

During the last quarter of the 20th century and the first quarter of the 21st, the market for table wines in the United States has “exploded.” The only country that consumes more wine is France, and domestically produced wines outsell imports by a rate of two to one.

In the “Wine Encyclopedia” (Portable Press, San Diego), the various authors’ include Stag’s Leap in a listing of the “significant” wine producers in the Napa Valley, the area they say is “the top premium  wine-growing region in North America. ” A few pages later, they write, “Warren Winarski,(who, together with his wife Barbara, owns the winery) is famous, not only for the victory of his 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon at the Paris Tasting in 1976, but because he has always been ahead of the pack in producing wines of optimal quality in Napa Valley.”

In short, Stag’s Leap is a five-star winery in the premier wine growing region in the United States. 

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