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Shafer acquires ‘world class’ Napa vineyard

12 June 2023 By Sarah Neish

California’s Shafer Vineyards has supercharged its Cabernet Sauvignon offering with its latest purchase, a vineyard in Napa’s Atlas Peak AVA.

Shafer Vineyards has purchased the four-hectare Altimeter vineyard in Atlas Peak, one of Napa Valley’s most renowned AVAs.

Known for its higher elevation, which results in less cooling fog created by the lower-lying San Pablo Bay and Pacific Ocean, Atlas Peak is the most prominent peak of the Vaca mountain range and while its temperature is cooler than many Napa AVAs, it receives some of the lowest rainfall in the Valley.

Planted to Cabernet Sauvignon, the Altimeter vineyard represents a strategic move by Shafer to ensure premium fruit for its Cabernet Sauvignon wines, which retail for up to US$375 per bottle.

“Acquiring this spectacular world-class vineyard is part of our unwavering, decades-long focus on producing wines of elegance, purity, and balance,” said Shafer’s general manager Matthew Sharp. “It’s a great privilege to make this site part of the Shafer Vineyard portfolio.”

Winemaker Elias Fernandez, who celebrates his 40th vintage with the winery this year, will continue to focus his efforts on Cabernet Sauvignon, which was the first wine made by Shafer following its founding in 1972.

“As a winemaker, the dream is to be able to select only the very finest fruit from top vineyards,” he said. “This added acreage gives us the ability to choose only Cabernet Sauvignon of an extraordinarily high calibre in a given vintage. This purchase is all about quality.”

This is the second vineyard purchase for Shafer within the past year. In August 2022, the winery announced the acquisition of the nine-hectare Wildfoote vineyard next to the winery’s hillside estate in Stags Leap District as part of a US$35 million deal.

At the time, Sharp called it a “once in a generation opportunity”.

In February 2022, Shafer Vineyards was sold to Shinsegae Property, the property arm of a Korea-based luxury firm, in a deal worth a reported US$250 million.

The deal marked Shinsegae’s first venture into the US wine business, with the firm also owning a wholesale liquor business in the United States.

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