This is a wine that encapsulates the strengths that make Shafer one of Napa’s great wineries: the skill and intuition of winemaker Elias Fernandez, and the entrepreneurial spirit of the Shafer family. A couple harvests ago, Elias came to the table with a proposal. He wanted to make a wine with the best fruit from a small collection of the winery’s vineyard sites just south of Stags Leap District. Elias didn’t want to be bound by variety or percentages. He wanted excellence. Needless to say, it was a very good thing that John and Doug Shafer accepted that proposal.

The name references John Shafer’s early days as a Napa pioneer who, in the space of a few months in 1973, went from riding morning commuter trains in Chicago to teaching himself to drive an ancient tractor (a TD-9) left behind in his vineyard property’s drive shed.

Elias selected fruit from Shafer’s hillside vineyards in Stags Leap District and Yountville, as well as from a vineyard in the foothills of the Vaca Mountains just south of Stags Leap. TD-9 is an opportunity to take the best fruit from these vineyards each year to create the most compelling wine the vintage can offer.

Fills the glass with irresistible aromas and flavours of fresh black cherries, black currant, red plum, thyme, rose petal, and cocoa. Lush and mouth-filling, with complexity and structure.

“A full-bodied while refined Cabernet Sauvignon, the TD9 cuvée delivers the strength and generosity so characteristic of Shafer wine. Aromas and flavors of cassis, ripe blackberries, and freshly cracked pine fill the mouth leading into a lengthy and expressive finish of graphite and warming spices.”
95 points, Elaine Chukan Brown, Wine Enthusiast, December 2024

“Named for the tractor acquired with the original property in 1973, Shafer’s 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon TD-9 blends fruit from the estate with purchased fruit to provide an entry-level Cabernet Sauvignon. A blend of 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Merlot, 4% Malbec and 3% Petit Verdot, aged in 100% new French oak, it does offer plenty of vanilla and spice shadings to balance the cherry fruit. Full-bodied and velvety-textured, it offers plenty of pleasure for what amounts to a fair price within the Napa scheme of things.”
91 points, Joe Czerwinski, Wine Advocate, October 2024