In 1972 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.
2018 marked the 40th anniversary of the first vintage of Cabernet Sauvignon from Shafer Vineyards, situated in the Stags Leap District of Napa Valley. Back then, there were two or three dozen producers of premium Cabernet Sauvignon in the valley; today there are more than 200. Over the last four decades, John Shafer, his son Doug, and their winemaker Elias Fernandez, have teamed together to form one of the most noteworthy of all Napa estates, especially for their glorious Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon, but also for Syrah and Chardonnay.
