Shafer Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon 2000

ws95wa93st90

BN#150631

Shafer

Very fragrant with loads of lush black fruit, dark bramble, pepper, mineral, sweet-spicy vanilla and dense purple-midnight color. A core of sweetness and supple, sweet tannins from our small-berried hillside fruit spread a chocolate-like rounded feel in the mouth and offer a lengthy finish.

Wine Spectator

A mouthful, this wine gushes with pure, ripe Cabernet fruit. Tiers of currant, anise, blackberry, cherry and wild berry flavors are supported by pretty mocha-scented oak and plush, velvety tannins that firm up on the finish, giving it a solid backbone, yet the persistent flavors keep pushing through. Best from 2004 through 2014. 2,500 cases made.

Score: 95. —James Laube, October 31, 2003.

Wine Advocate

The 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon Hillside Select was performing even better this year than it was last year. While not as weighty and ageworthy as some of the more hallowed vintages, it is a seriously endowed wine. Deep ruby/purple to the rim, with a gorgeous nose of creme de cassis, licorice, graphite, spice, and cedar, it is more forward than most vintages, but full-bodied, concentrated, and beautifully seductive. Drink it over the next 15 or so years.

Score: 93. —Robert Parker, February 2005.

International Wine Cellar

Ruby-red. Deep, slightly medicinal aromas of black cherry, mocha and menthol. Smooth and round on the palate, with noteworthy sweetness and texture for the vintage. Coolish flavors of black cherry, currant and tobacco. This can't match the best recent vintages of this bottling for depth and flavor authority, but it neatly avoids the green cast and drying tannins of so many 2000 Napa Valley cabernets. 90 points

Score: 90. —Stephen Tanzer, March 2005.