2013 Chad Cabernet Sauvignon Stags Leap District Napa Valley

A Call from Stags Leap: 2013 CHAD Cabernet Sauvignon

It was 2009. The country was teetering on the financial abyss, with Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, and the entire American auto industry all needing bailouts. It had taken longer than many of us had predicted, but the mayhem on Wall Street had finally reached Napa Valley. In the 24 months that followed, nearly every producer of Cabernet Sauvignon not named Screaming Eagle, Harlan Estate, or Colgin would be caught in the crosshairs of the Great Recession.

One summer night, a couple dozen winemakers put together a potluck BBQ in the public park in Yountville. The mood, however, wasn’t as festive as most had hoped. It had been months since wholesalers had stopped answering suppliers’ calls, as national retailers reduced inventory to preserve cash. Wineries up and down Silverado Trail were stuck with thousands of cases of excellent 2005s, 2006s, and 2007s.

Chad listened as his winemaker buddies openly complained about job security and the shrinking value of their Napa Valley homes. By the time the young Howell Mountain winemaker returned home to read bedtime stories to his kids, he’d hatched an idea that would delight Cabernet Sauvignon bargain-hunters from San Francisco to Manhattan.

Since the release of the 2009s, we have featured over 20 small lots of CHAD Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Each was made by a prominent Napa Valley winery that for one reason or another found itself with more inventory than it could hope to sell. Those CHAD Cabernets delighted the WineAccess membership, garnering some of the highest ratings in website history. Why? The same wine that was selling under the winery’s own label for $60-$125 could be found under CHAD for just $25-$45!

In The Wine Advocate’s October 30th vintage report, Robert Parker suggested that 2013 is the finest Napa Valley vintage since he first visited the rocky slopes of Stags Leap 37 years ago. But Parker also noted that yields in 2013 were as bountiful as they had been in 2012, one of the largest harvests in valley history. Incredibly, the same wineries that had suffered through four consecutive short crops from 2008-2011 were now bursting at the seams.

One of Stags Leap’s greatest names had no choice but to sell off a dozen barrels of its own critically acclaimed 2013 reserve. Their first call was to Chad. As has been the case so often over the last six years, the winery wouldn’t make another.

The 2013 CHAD Stags Leap Reserve is comprised of 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. Opaque purple. Sexy, primary-fruit aromas of cassis, blackberry, and licorice, tinged with new-wood cedar. Sweet, polished, and finely delineated on the attack, filled with blackberry preserves and sweet crème de cassis. Still, it’s the finish that we find so extraordinary here. Even more so than in 2012, the small-berry harvest of 2013 made for fine, dusty tannins and sturdy Stags Leap backbone, arguing eloquently for 10-20 years of cellar slumber.

Compared to $75/bottle under the winery’s own label. This morning under CHAD? $27/bottle. You make the call. Shipping included on 4.

• ABV 14.50%
• Enjoy right away
• % Cabernet Sauvignon