Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cellarius Series 2021
Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars is one of the genuinely consequential wineries in American wine history. It is not simply a famous Napa Cabernet producer: its 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon was the wine that finished first in the red-wine portion of the 1976 Judgment of Paris, an event that fundamentally changed international perceptions of California wine. The winning bottle is now part of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History collection.
There is also an important distinction that causes endless confusion: Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars and Stags’ Leap Winery are two entirely different wineries. This one—the producer of Cellarius—is Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, founded by Warren and Barbara Winiarski.
Napa pioneer Warren Winiarski
Warren Winiarski came to Napa with an intellectual rather than agricultural background. His encounter with Cabernet grown by pioneering grower Nathan Fay proved pivotal. Fay had planted Cabernet Sauvignon in 1961 in an area that was not yet recognized as the Stags Leap District. Winiarski tasted Fay’s homemade Cabernet in 1969 and became convinced that the area could produce Cabernet of exceptional quality.
In 1970, Warren and Barbara Winiarski purchased property immediately adjacent to Fay’s vineyard and established what became S.L.V.—Stag’s Leap Vineyard. The winery was built in 1972, which was also the first vintage of S.L.V. Cabernet Sauvignon. That timing makes what happened next rather extraordinary.
The Judgment of Paris
On May 24, 1976, British wine merchant Steven Spurrier and Patricia Gallagher organized a blind tasting in Paris intended to compare California wines with prestigious French wines. Nine French wine professionals judged the wines. The Californians won six of the 10 in the red-wine category, with Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars 1973 taking the top spot. (Chateau Montelena’s 1973 Chardonnay simultaneously won the white-wine tasting.)
That was an astonishing result. California wasn’t merely competitive; a young Napa winery with Cabernet from extremely young vines had beaten classified-growth Bordeaux in a blind tasting conducted by French judges. The significance went well beyond bragging rights. It gave credibility to the proposition that California could make genuinely world-class fine wine, helping accelerate investment, vineyard development, and international interest in Napa Valley.
Stag’s leap changes ownership, but not its identity
in 2007, Warren Winiarski sold Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars to a partnership between Ste. Michelle Wine Estates and the Antinori family of Italy. Marchesi Antinori is one of Italy’s oldest and most prestigious wine families. Then, in 2023, Antinori acquired Ste. Michelle’s interest and became the sole owner of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. Importantly, the winery has not been folded anonymously into a giant portfolio. Stag’s Leap remains very much a distinct Napa estate.
The current winemaker
The head winemaker is Marcus Notaro. He joined Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars in 2013 after nearly two decades of Cabernet winemaking experience. The winery describes his approach as combining Old World techniques with New World methods while emphasizing ripeness without losing restraint.
The caves
Excavation of the caves began in 1996, and they were completed in 2000. There are more than 34,000 square feet of tunnels underneath the property. The entrance is known as The Arcade, designed by Barcelona architect Javier Barba. And there is an extraordinary feature inside: a Foucault pendulum suspended from the cave ceiling, functioning simultaneously as scientific instrument and metaphor for the passage of time while wine ages underground.
Conservation and sustainability
Winiarski was unusually forward-thinking about preserving the property. In 1990, he placed S.L.V. under a conservation easement with the Land Trust of Napa County, ensuring that it would remain agricultural land permanently.
The winery began a three-year organic-certification process for its estate vineyards in 2022. That matters because these aren’t simply vineyard holdings that happen to supply wine. The estate vineyards are effectively historic sites in American wine.
The terroir
The winery’s identity is inseparable from the Stags Leap District AVA. This is relatively warm Napa Cabernet country, but the district benefits from cooling influences moving north from San Pablo Bay.
S.L.V. is the original vineyard. Its soils are predominantly volcanic and well drained. S.L.V. tends toward the darker, more structured side of the house style. This is the vineyard that produced the Paris wine.
FAY Vineyard is historically even older. Nathan Fay planted Cabernet there in 1961, the first Cabernet planting in what eventually became the Stags Leap District. Winiarski bought the vineyard from Fay in 1986 and named it FAY in his honor. FAY delivers redder fruit and softer tannins.
Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cellarius Series 2021
The label on the 2021 Cellarius Series bottle reproduces a celestial/cartographic illustration strongly associated with Andreas Cellarius, the 17th-century Dutch-German cartographer whose Harmonia Macrocosmica, published in 1661, became one of the great illustrated celestial atlases.
Cellarius is a special Cabernet Sauvignon project built around two related ideas: mapping Napa Valley through Cabernet Sauvignon and celebrating Andreas Cellarius’s cartography. Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars actually owns a set of nine Cellarius engravings. So the artwork isn’t merely some antique astronomical illustration selected by a graphic designer. It comes directly from an important work that the winery itself collects.
If you’re looking for a big, bold Napa Cab, this ain’t it. (And I do love those myself.) But if your goal is a wine of elegance and restraint, it’s just the ticket. The 100% Cabernet Sauvignon came from three very different Napa sources: Soda Canyon Ranch, Moore Ranch, and Stags Leap Vineyard. It was aged for 26 months in 100% new French oak, entirely Darnajou barrels from one of Bordeaux’s most prestigious small cooperages.
Cellarius is a deep, inky purple in the glass. The mouthwatering nose delivers the classic Cabernet Sauvignon aromas of cassis, blackberry, and black cherry. These continue on the rich, structured palate, adding violet, graphite, and cocoa. The fruit, acidity, and tannins are in perfect balance. It all wraps up in a nice long finish. ABV is 14.8%. (It’s expensive, but if you shop carefully, it is sometimes sold for as much as half-off the price from the winery.)
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