Judgment of Paris 50th Anniversary Bottling: Take a Stag’s Leap Into History!

Typically, history is something you read about. Today, it’s something you get to taste.

 

We’ve just secured possession of Stag’s Leap Cellars's Judgment of Paris 50th Anniversary S.L.V. 2023. Yes, the historic wine tasting that saw the Americans beat the French at their own game and changed the world of wine forever.
 

To understand what makes this wine so exceptional — and such an important and meaningful collectible — is to drill down into the details.

The fruit for this historic bottling hails mainly from their famed Block 4, the last remaining parcel of the estate's original 1972 plantings and the exact same vines that produced the 1973 Cabernet that beat out the First Growths in Paris. 

To mark the occasion, the winery produced exactly 1,973 individually numbered magnums. Even the Cabernet Franc percentage, 1%, was chosen as a deliberate callback to the blend that changed everything.

That's the glittering centerpiece of today’s offer, and we couldn’t wait to share the news with you. 

But we didn’t stop there.

Lisa Perrotti-Brown has written that 2023 in Napa might well turn out to be a “once in a lifetime” vintage, and to be sure, 2023 has so far proven to be a banner year for Stag’s Leap, with their wines drawing some of the strongest critical responses the estate has seen in years. 

The S.L.V. earned 98 points from James Suckling — “fragrant” and "layered,” he called it, and built for the long haul. The Cask 23 — a 70/30 Fay-S.L.V. blend, made only from the top barrels, and only in exceptional years — took home the same 98-point score, with The Wine Advocate singling out its "seductive texture of fine suede" and its rare ability to be simultaneously rich, expansive, and weightless on the palate. Vinous was smitten with the Fay, awarding 96 points and declaring it "fabulous" and "all class.”

For those looking further back: the S.L.V. 2016, with ten years of bottle age, is in a gorgeous drinking window right now. And the Fay 2005 in magnum — nearly twenty years old, and from one of the great Napa vintages of that decade — is exactly the kind of bottle we don’t often find just sitting around. And exactly the kind of wine we live to bring you.

One of the great things about Stag’s Leap is that it has refused to calcify. It could easily have slid into a period of complacency and contentment, secure in its reputation as a great and historical force. Instead, it continues to push boundaries while honoring its storied legacy.

These wines show you exactly what a legend looks like when it doesn’t rest on its past … when it aims to write great new chapters for the present and future, too.

We’re so proud to have partnered with them to bring you these, and can’t wait for you to taste what has us all buzzing over here.

Secure these consummate Cabs for your collection today!