Shafer Vineyards traces its beginnings to 1972 when John Shafer left a 23-year career in the publishing industry and, with his family, moved to the 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, eventually expanding vineyard acreage to its current 50 acres.

 

Evolving from grape growers to vintners, the Shafers crushed their first Cabernet grapes in 1978 and began construction on their winery.

2005 Red Shoulder Ranch Chardonnay

Robert M. Parker, Jr., has called Red Shoulder Ranch one of the finest non-malolactic, barrel-fermented Chardonnays in California.

On 66 acres near the northern tip of San Francisco Bay, Shafer harvests fruit for this classic single vineyard wine.

The Red Shoulder Ranch vineyard in the Carneros region offers a long, consistently cool growing season, which is ideal for retaining Chardonnay’s acidity. To focus on varietal flavors, Shafer uses only wild yeast for fermentation and eschews malolactic fermentation.

Shafer’s Carneros vineyard serves as home to countless gophers that, left unchecked, find young vine roots to make a most tempting snack. To keep the gophers in check, Shafer has erected owl nesting boxes and hawk perches to encourage day and night rodent patrol.

The Red-shouldered hawks and other aerial predators do such an outstanding job keeping the rodents at bay that Shafer has named the vineyard in their honor.

In a region that offers long, cool growing seasons, 2005 was longer and cooler than most. The ideal summer growing conditions allowed Shafer to leave the fruit on the vine until it reached its most perfect ripeness, which brings out the finest qualities of the Carneros Chardonnay fruit. Each glass holds myriad layers of aroma and flavor. Notes of honeysuckle, Fuji apple, apricot, and hints exotic flavors of the tropic fruit predominate.

The underlying acidity, resulting from our cool-weather vineyard site, is crisply balanced against warm, toasty oak, with a long, mouth-pleasing finish.

Shafer’s 2004 Chardonnay offers generous fruit, honeysuckle, apricot, and citrus characteristics within a classic, full-bodied profile.