Shafer Vineyards
Stags Leap District AVA
A team with unwavering reputation for supreme quality
Shafer Vineyards traces its beginnings to 1972 when John Shafer left a 23-year career in the publishing industry and moved his family to Napa Valley to pursue a second career in wine. After purchasing a 210-acre estate in Napa Valley’s Stags Leap District, the Shafer family faced the arduous task of replanting the existing vineyards (which dated to the 1920s) and terracing the steep and rocky hillsides.
What began as a career in viticulture, quickly expanded into full-scale winemaking and in 1978, the first Shafer Cabernet Sauvignon was made. This wine became a benchmark, winning the acclaimed San Francisco Vintners Club taste-off upon release.
Over a decade later the wine took first place in an international blind tasting held in Germany, where it outranked such wines as Château Margaux, Château Latour and Château Palmer. Shafer Vineyards was on the fast track to world-wide success!
In 1983, John Shafer’s son Doug became the winemaker and for the next ten years forged the trademark Shafer style of quality, consistency, and elegance, most noteably through their Cabernet, Chardonnay, and Merlots. Doug took over the reins as president in 1994 and his father went on to become chairman of the board.
In 2010, the father-son team received the historic James Beard Foundation Award for “Outstanding Wine and Spirits Professional,” joining such luminaries as Robert Mondavi and Andre Tchelistcheff.
With this incredible honor and the team’s unwavering reputation for supreme quality, Shafer Vineyards has become one of California’s most popular and distinguished luxury wine brands.
