Shafer History Timeline
1880's
Napa Valley pioneers Jacob Ohl and C. H. Linderman plant vineyards on future Shafer estate.
1922
Italian immigrant Batista Scansi re-plants during Prohibition and sells fruit to home winemakers.
1972
John and Bett Shafer purchase a 209-acre property including 30 acres of Scansi’s vineyards. John teaches himself to drive an old TD-9 tractor.
1973-74
John Shafer plants Cabernet Sauvignon, creating small hillside vineyard blocks such as Sunspot and John’s Upper Seven.
1977
John makes his first foray into winemaking with a batch of homemade Cabernet from vines he’d planted in the mid-1970s.
1978
John makes his first Shafer Vineyards wine — a precursor to Hillside Select — with Cabernet Sauvignon fruit from John’s Upper Seven.
1979
A bitterly cold January keeps Shafer’s first Cabernet from going through malolactic fermentation. John finds the warmth the wine needs when he wraps the barrels in electric blankets.
1981
Shafer’s 1978 Cabernet is released and makes its debut at the first Napa Valley Wine Auction.
1983
Doug joins the winery as winemaker. When he tastes the 1982 lot from the Sunspot vineyard block he’s so impressed he talks John into keeping it separate from the others. With the Sunspot lot Doug creates Shafer’s one and only Reserve Cabernet.
1984
Doug believes the Reserve deserves a better name and creates the first Hillside Select with the 1983 vintage.
Elias Fernandez is hired as assistant winemaker three weeks prior to his graduation from U.C. Davis.
1985
John leads an effort to petition the government to designate Stags Leap District an American Viticultural Area (AVA).
1988
Shafer purchases 70-acre Red Shoulder Ranch in Carneros.
Shafer takes first steps toward sustainable agriculture, planting cover crops and erecting hawk perches and owl nesting boxes (to encourage these raptors to lower the gopher population) in Stags Leap District and Carneros vineyards.
1989
Stags Leap District is approved as an AVA.
1994
Doug is named winery president, Elias is named winemaker, and John takes the role of chairman.
1995
Shafer’s first Red Shoulder Ranch Chardonnay, 1994 vintage, is released and is named one of the Top Ten Wines of the Year by Wine Spectator magazine.
2002
First release of Relentless, 1999 vintage, named to honor Elias’ relentless pursuit of wine quality.
2003
Shafer is dubbed “one of the world’s greatest wineries” by wine critic Robert M. Parker, Jr.
2004
Shafer celebrates 25 years of winemaking.
Shafer constructs a 128-kW solar array and becomes the first winery in Napa and Sonoma to generate 100 percent of its power needs with solar energy.
2007
Shafer releases 2004 One Point Five, the first of this lineage of Cabernet Sauvignons. The name plays off “a generation and a half,” a term Doug and John created to describe their long-time working relationship.
2008
Shafer builds new 100kW solar array to power water reclamation pond and irrigation system for Hillside Estate Vineyards.
2010
John and Doug Shafer are awarded the James Beard Foundation’s “Wine and Spirits Professionals of the Year.”
2011
Cody, Doug Shafer’s cheerful Golden Retriever, joins the winery staff and ensures that the hallways are reserved for racing.
2012
2008 Relentless is named “Wine of the Year” by Wine Spectator magazine
University of California Press publishes Doug Shafer’s critically acclaimed memoir, A Vineyard In Napa, a look back at 40 years of life inside Napa Valley’s wine industry.
2014
John Shafer celebrates his 90th birthday
2016
Shafer donates a five acre parcel to Wildlife Rescue Center of Napa County to house the center’s first permanent rehabilitation aviary for wild birds.
2017
Shafer releases first vintage of TD-9, a proprietary red blend. The name honors John Shafer’s risk-taking and sense of adventure leaving corporate America and teaching himself to drive a TD-9 tractor in his Napa Valley vineyard.
2018
Shafer launches “The Taste with Doug Shafer,” a podcast featuring Doug in conversation with fascinating people from the world of wine and food.
2020
Shafer responds to global pandemic by releasing relaxing six-hour YouTube video of sheep grazing on its hillsides. The video is featured in major media outlets and tallies hundreds of thousands of views.
