March 10 event features one of the last bottles of the 1973 S.L.V. Cabernet Sauvignon that won the historic Judgment of Paris
23 February – DALLAS, Texas – Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, maker of the Cabernet Sauvignon that forever changed the wine world, will once again make history in March. For the first time in its storied 52-year history, the winery will offer at auction nearly 4,000 bottles from its heralded Legacy Collection, providing oenophiles, collectors and the curious unprecedented access to the wine that forced France to raise its glass to Napa Valley.
Heritage Auctions is honored to present The Legacy Collection from Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars on March 10, during the auction house’s two-day Signature® Fine and Rare Wine Auction. This event, which opens the wine event at Heritage Auctions, marks the first time a California winery of this stature has opened its library at this level to Heritage, demonstrating quality, craftsmanship and continuity across more than 40 years, from 1972-2017.
Among the centerpiece offerings in this momentous event is a single bottle of the 1973 S.L.V Cabernet Sauvignon that “won” the Judgment of Paris and put Napa Valley on the world wine map. This wine is so special that the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of American History has a bottle in its permanent collection.
As the museum notes, this is the very vintage “that outranked some of France’s best Bordeaux at a blind tasting held in Paris” on May 24, 1976, otherwise known as the Judgment of Paris. “When the 1973 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon placed first, the judges were astonished, and the rest of the wine world took notice.”
“We are excited to partner with Heritage Auctions for this Legacy Collection auction,” says Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Winemaker Marcus Notaro. “Many of the vintages that will be up for sale are being released for the very first time. We have never participated in an auction with this many of our wines from our treasured past. There’s no question that these bottles will be an impressive addition to any home collection – whether you plan to hold them longer in your cellar or open them to mark a milestone moment. This is a special opportunity to acquire these rare, aged beauties.”
Since its founding, Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars has been tucking away small allotments from each vintage “to see how the wine ages and evolves,” Notaro says. These bottles make up our Legacy Collection of library wines and each bottle has been carefully aged by us in optimal conditions. And, as Notaro notes, “The wines have pristine provenance, represented by a special designation on each bottle.”
The Legacy Collection wines offered in the March 10 auction include almost all the vintages Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars has ever made of its Estate-Grown Cabernet Sauvignons (FAY, S.L.V. and CASK 23), as well as ARTEMIS Cabernet Sauvignon and the Napa Valley Merlot. Some of the highlights of this auction include CASK 23 from 1979 to 2017; S.L.V. from 1972 to 2017; FAY from 1990 to 2017; ARTEMIS from 2001 to 2015; and Napa Valley Merlot from 1977 to 2005. Lots will include 12 bottles of 750ml, six 1.5L magnums and a handful of 6L, 12L and 18L wines.
“This grand estate isn’t a winery, it’s a bona fide institution,” says Frank Martell, Senior Director of Fine & Rare Wines at Heritage Auctions. “For the first time ever, we’ve set aside a special Thursday session for this occasion, and we are excited to be offering the largest selection of library wines ever to come to auction from one of Napa Valley’s first heroes. I know so many collectors who count Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars among the very first collectible wines they came to love, and with few exceptions, all the wines they remember are on offer here, including a single bottle of the Judgment of Paris-winning 1973 S.L.V., of which only a few precious bottles remain.”
Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars wasn’t the first to make wine in California. But as the movies and history books remind, the vintner was instrumental in putting Napa Valley on the map. As early as 1974, the Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars team knew it had something special in its barrels, and decided that one lot of wine from its vineyard was “so beautiful and distinctive that it should be bottled separately,” Notaro says.
“It had been aged in a large wooden cask, No. 23 in the cellar, so the bottling was labeled CASK 23,” he says. “Upon release, CASK 23 instantly became a benchmark for California Cabernet Sauvignon.”
And not long after, the Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernets – CASK 23, FAY and S.L.V. – became some of the most highly sought-after, collected and acclaimed wines worldwide. For many, it became their first taste of a world-class wine made in the United States; for countless others, Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars is the bottle opened to celebrate life’s major events.
About Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars
Considered one of the “first growths” of Napa Valley, Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars produces renowned Cabernet Sauvignon from its historic Stags Leap District estate vineyards. Founded in 1970, the winery brought international recognition to California winemaking and the Napa Valley when the 1973 S.L.V. Cabernet Sauvignon won the now famous 1976 Paris Tasting, also known as the “Judgment of Paris.” Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars’ three estate-grown Cabernet Sauvignons–CASK 23, S.L.V. and FAY–are among the most highly regarded and collected Cabernet Sauvignons worldwide. The same classic style of the estate wines is expressed in the Napa Valley wines – AVETA Sauvignon Blanc, KARIA Chardonnay and ARTEMIS Cabernet Sauvignon. www.
About the Judgment of Paris
For American wine, there was no milestone more significant than the Judgment of Paris organized by Steven Spurrier, the transplanted Englishman who ran the Caves de la Madeleine wine shop and L’Académie du Vin along the Right Bank of the river Seine in Paris. Spurrier, who died in March of last year at 79, had hoped to prove California wines could hold their own against their French counterparts. He assembled what Taber called “an oenophile’s Who’s Who” in his TIME article recounting the blind tasting, pitting, among others, four Grands Crus Chateaux reds from Bordeaux against six California Cabernet Sauvignons.
Judges were aghast when they discovered they chose Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars over the Château Mouton-Rothschild and Château Montrose 1970. One French judge, Odette Kahn – at the time editor of La Revue du vin de France – even demanded her ballot back.
The event was “the greatest underdog tale in wine history,” CNN noted only last year. In 2001 BusinessWeek wrote that the Americans’ win in the Paris tasting “almost instantaneously gave California’s boutique wineries credibility.” Wine merchants who wouldn’t return calls from Stag’s Leap were suddenly ringing the winery, and restaurants that had once refused to stock its bottles were clamoring for vintages to satisfy overwhelming customer demand.
Today, Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars remains among the world’s most acclaimed winemakers; its vintages, among the world’s most coveted. That makes this once-in-a-lifetime auction all the more special, as it will be for many the first and last chance to own its extraordinary history in a bottle.
“There’s no question that our wines are extremely age-worthy, and I’m always struck by how the fruit remains primary even in wines with 30 years of age,” Notaro says. “If a wine is balanced at the time of bottling, it will remain balanced. That’s what we strive for with every bottling. I’m also struck by the shared family lineage that I find when I taste through a flight of FAY, S.L.V. or CASK 23 Cabernet. The defining characteristics of the vineyard are captured in each bottle.”
About Heritage Auctions
Heritage Auctions is the largest fine art and collectibles auction house founded in the United States, and the world’s largest collectibles auctioneer. Heritage maintains offices in New York, Dallas, Beverly Hills, Chicago, Palm Beach, London, Paris, Geneva, Amsterdam and Hong Kong.
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