Amongst the wineries in the United States’ most famous winemaking region of Napa Valley, Screaming Eagle may just be about the most elusive. The address and exact location of its vineyards are unknown to the public, and unlike many other wineries that would gladly open their doors to invite you in their estate for a tasting or a visit, Screaming Eagle’s doors remain closed to public tours or tastings. That’s probably to be expected from one of the most sought-after and limited wines in the world, Screaming Eagle – known today as one of America’s most revered wines and a Napa Valley cult icon. And so the lore - and by extension, the demand - for Screaming Eagle was thus built on the perfect cocktail of small production driven scarcity meeting great critic reviews, and of course just a touch of mystery. The past three and a half decades have seen the Napa icon more grail-ed than ever, and yet we've learnt little about what goes into it.

Yet the story of Screaming Eagle Estate begins not with a viticulturist or winemaker, but with a real estate specialist with a keen eye, Jean Phillips. Jean had been a real estate agent operating around the Napa Valley area in the 1980's just as Napa Valley was finding its footing in the wine world. The landmark Judgement of Paris tasting had just struck several years prior, shocking the world with how much potential Napa Valley's wines held (having been pitted against some of the best of France's Bordeaux), and so the hunt was on for future winners where it came to plots of vineyards. Jean would help numerous soon to be Napa Valley cult wines find their home, having found great plots of vines for the likes of Harlan Estate and Dalla Valle. Whilst Jean was no winegrower nor winemaker, she was an avid gardener and couched her intuition heavily on what a good land had looked like. It wasn't long before Jean got around to the idea that if she had such a knack for finding great vineyards, that maybe she ought to find one for herself and really see if the proof was in the pudding - some encouragement from Napa Valley legend Robert Mondavi himself certainly helped move Jean in that direction.

Screaming Eagle's elusive vineyards.

In 1986, Jean acquired a 57-acre property within Napa Valley’s renowned wine-growing region around Oakville. The vineyards that Jean had acquired were planted with a mishmash of grape varietals, which she would replant with Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot. Jean would also try her hand at home winemaking for several years, but would recognise her limitations as an expert in Napa Valley real estate and not instead a winemaker. This would prompt her to seek out the advice of those at the famed Robert Mondavi Winery. She would eventually meet Richard Peterson, a famed winemaker who had served under reputable vineyards such as E & J Gallo and also Beaulieau Vineyards (where he studied under the father of Napa Valley winemaking, Andre Tschelistcheff), who would quickly vouch for his daughter, Heidi Peterson Barrett. 

Barrett, who was also the wife of Bo Barrett of the famed fellow Napa Valley vineyard Chateau Montelena, had by that point gained recognition for her work at Buehler Vineyards and also achieving two historic 100-point score from wine critic Robert Parker for the wines she made at Dalla Valle. With the help of Heidi and Gustav (of his namesake Dalla Valle Vineyards), Jean would select her favourite vineyard blocks, and would sell off everything else to other winemakers. All in all, she would keep just a tine one acre plot that held about 80 Cabernet Sauvignon vines.

Heidi would come onboard as Screaming Eagle's first winemaker, and the two women would plug away in a little stone barn that Heidi had found and refurbished, working hard at an attempt to make some good wines - what resulted from that effort would change their history forever. Heidi would be instrumental in helping to propel Screaming Eagle’s success with the debut of the winery’s 1992 vintage - just 200 cases, which would be awarded an almost-perfect 99 points in 1995 by the Wine Advocate’s Robert Parker. Robert Parker would also go on to call Heidi “the Queen of Cult Cabernet”. Screaming Eagle had received an unprecedented status as a cult wine icon.

Certainly part of the attraction was just how out of left-field Screaming Eagle's success was. There was little indication that something magical was happening in the modest stone barn. By famed wine critic Jancis Robinson's own admission, whilst she had been on a tour around Napa Valley filming a BBC television series in the mid-1990's, she had even been orientated around the area by Jean, who humbly served as little more than a kindly and helpful guide who would make introductions and point Robinson and the crew to good locations for filming, at one point even taking the crew to her house for a break, only dropping a tiny hint as to a small upcoming label that she had been working on - little did the crew (and Robinson herself!) knew that Screaming Eagle was about to take flight! Reflecting back, Robinson had found it unassumingly telling that the email address that Jean had provided read "screaminjean@aol.com".

As was standard Napa practice, Screaming Eagle too would manage their own mailing list, rewarding fans for their years of patience with the delivery of just three bottles of impossible to get Screaming Eagle wines. By the 2000, Screaming Eagle's waitlist had its own waitlist, and whilst no official number has ever been put out, it's been said that the roster holds at least 4,000 names, which prompted Jean to close the list to new sign-ups.

A large part of the winery’s allure is in sheer scarcity and exclusivity. A deliberate choice was made for Screaming Eagle to make its wines in exceptionally small quantities – fewer than 600 cases for its first release – allowing for a great deal of quality control an invoking an intense element of exclusivity. Unlike many other wineries that courted attention, Screaming Eagle shrouded itself in a sense of mystery. The understated nature of the winery was palpably intentional – there was no flashy marketing, minimal media engagement, as well as a lack of grand estate openings and tourist visits. Even the eagle-bearing labels of Screaming Eagle wines remain distinctively subtle. To add to this air of exclusivity, the few available bottles of the signature Screaming Eagle expression each year are not sold, but allocated to a select list of customers — you can imagine that prices could reach an astronomical level when they hit the secondary market at wine auctions. Till this day, production remains well within 500-850 cases made annually across its three labels.

Beyond the mere rarity of getting your hands on a bottle of Screaming Eagle, what really drives the allure of the winery is the enduring and exceptional quality of the wines as an emblem of what cult Cabernet Sauvignon is. The winery’s flagship Screaming Eagle wine is led by Napa Valley’s hallmark Cabernet Sauvignon, typically supported by a blend of small percentages of Merlot and Cabernet Franc. While the Cabernet Sauvignon of Napa Valley origin is often associated with excessive heaviness, Screaming Eagle’s signature style of wines defies this old stereotype – balancing concentration and ripeness with elegance and complexity. The estate’s hallmark expression is made from Cabernet grapes originating from prime vineyards on the eastern side of Oakville — an area reputed for producing some of Napa Valley’s most profound wines due to its combination of gravelly soils, excellent drainage, and consistent exposure to warm sunshine tempered by cooling breezes. This results in a distinctive style that combines the intensity and structure of Cabernet Sauvignon with finesse and aromatic complexity.

Beyond the hallmark Screaming Eagle wine, the estate also produces a second wine named The Flight – a Merlot based blend supported by Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc grape varietals. Screaming Eagle also produces a white wine made from Sauvignon Blanc grapes, made in very limited quantities in true Screaming Eagle fashion.

On the back of the global recognition that Screaming Eagle received met alongside supply constraints with the vineyard having suffered a virus caught from a neighbouring vineyard, the winery housed in the stone barn far too small to increase scale, with also Jean herself having gotten married, Jean knew that her involvement with the winery was at a crucial crossroad. The demand for Screaming Eagle was higher than ever, and yet her ability to deliver was beginning to wane. Jean had understood that a massive replanting effort was needed, which would be costly both financially and also in terms of time needed - both resources she could not afford. Under the assurance by Charles Banks that the new owners would see to it that the wine's style would remain unchanged and that they were committed to seeing the vineyards rejuvenated, Jean would thus decide to sell the winery in 2006 to Banks and billionaire real estate magnate and sports team owner Stan Kroenke. Jean Phillips has since remained resolutely out of the limelight despite her pivotal role in one of Napa Valley's most lauded wines. 

By 2009 Charles Banks would depart from the estate, with Stan Kroenke remaining as the sole proprietor of Screaming Eagle, and today this cult classic winery is known for producing one of the world’s most expensive wines — one bottle of the 1992 Screaming Eagle expression had famously sold for around half a million dollars at a Napa Valley auction in 2000. Nick Gislason has been the winemaker and vineyard manager of Screaming Eagle for over a decade, having previously worked at other wineries such as the proximal Harlan Estate in Oakville, California as well as Craggy Range winery in New Zealand. Stan Kroenke is also of other wine estates, namely Jonata, the Hilt, and Domaine Bonneau du Martray.

Screaming Eagle’s Oakville site offers a natural equilibrium of warmth and ripeness, while providing sufficient coolness for acidity, resulting wines that give both power and finesse. The 60-acre estate contains around 48 acres of vineyard planted with a variety of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, as well as smaller proportions of Sauvignon Blanc – under the management of David Abreu Vineyard Management.

The site had once been an old riverbed in the form of an alluvial fan that ran down the Vaca Mountain range, combining with a mix of eroded volcanic deposits and clay rich sections. This results in a wide diversity of soils that covers the vineyards, where underground rivers continue to run beneath it. The estate’s vineyards also have subtle variations in elevation across the plots, adding to the diversity of terroir across the region. The colours and tapestry of foliage emerging from the vineyard’s soils vary throughout the seasons, with vibrant florals blooming from the ground during the springtime – a demonstration of how virile the soils are.

Much of the vineyards today still trace the early decisions made by Jean Phillips, serving still as a subtle reminder of her deep intuition which directly resulted in the success of Screaming Eagle. As winemaker Nick Gislason says, “Jean has amazing intuition. Look at this soil, five foot deep above alluvial – it's the sort you dream about for Cabernet Sauvignon. It's like farming on a steep rocky hillside without being on a hillside. Jean just had a nose for it. She found properties for the likes of Dalla Valle and Harlan," further pointing out, "It was Jean Phillips who decided to put Merlot here. It wasn’t an obvious choice. You would want to put Cabernet here because of the gravelly soils. This part is an old riverbed and underground rivers from the hills run beneath it. Jean’s decision in the 1980s was a key one. And people tried to talk her out of it, saying Cabernet would be better here. But she was a gardener, and it was all intuitive. Here at the foot of the hills, we have cooler nights, and the Merlot has access to water, which it needs, but not too much water. The situation here for growing Merlot is legitimately unique.”

High standards were adopted by the estate’s vineyard manager David Abreu, who emphasized consistent management of the vineyard, small berry size, canopy control, and hand-harvesting with precision. One of the striking things about the Screaming Eagle estate is the patently naturalistic approach to vineyard management. Winemaker Nick Gislason also shared in an interview that instead of tilling the vineyard’s cover crop deep into the ground, the crop would be left in most of area to help increase the soils’ nutrients and reduce the ground temperature. This helps to slow the ripening process, allowing the wines to retain their freshness.

Further to the estate’s natural and holistic viticultural approach, the symbiotic relationship between the animals on the plot and the vines has a role to play in maintaining the health of the vineyard. In the early period of the winemaking season as well as after harvest, sheep tread across the vine rows and snack on the surrounding growth, helping to reduce and excess vegetation and loosen up the compact dirt, introducing more oxygen into the soils. The sheep are removed from the vineyard and replaced with chickens before new buds can form on the vines (sheep also undesirably enjoy snacking on fresh buds of growing vines). These birds act as a natural pest control to protect the health of the vines as they feed on unwelcome bugs that appear among the vine rows. The natural movement of the chickens also helps to mow the cover crops on the vineyard, while continuing to nourish the soil through their droppings.

Behind the veil of mystery with little being let on about how Screaming Eagle achieves its wines, and even as many who've studied the winery's wines and have made the pilgrimage to its elusive vineyards have talked of Screaming Eagle's air of magic, what is nevertheless subtly yet resolutely made clear is how precise and meticulous everything is. In its vineyards sit about 100,000 vines, each individually tagged and numbered with a stainless steel earmark, allowing for the team to monitor the vineyards at an individual vine level. The vineyards are then allotted into 50 discrete blocks, with each lot and row given its own distinct farming approach tailored to the specific qualities of that section. If a large commercial vineyard sacrifices precision for scale, then the whole point of Screaming Eagle's incredibly minute size must be that the team is able to focus and individualise attention and approach on every vine of every row and section, of every plot, in as detailed and as artisanal a manner as possible. As such, everything is handled in perhaps the least scalable way possible at Screaming Eagle, and no expense must be spared for the pursuit of quality. Yet when probed on how the vines are treated to achieve such a wine, all the team at Screaming Eagle will ever give is a vague response to the tune of "farming decisions". For the winery and its followers, reverence and secrecy go hand in hand.

Into the cellars, the individual blocks are harvested (as slowly or as quickly as is needed, at times ranging over 6 weeks, with each block only brought in when deemed ready) and vinified separately - 50 acres yielding 50 different lots, with varied vinification methods ranging from the use of stainless-steel tanks to oak and concrete – different materials for the vessels are considered to complement the distinct characteristics of each block. For example, while stainless-steel is versatile enough to work with different grape varietals from varied terroirs, oak may be more adequately suited to balance the tannins of Cabernet grapes, while concrete vats can help with enhancing wines with a more floral profile. Once fermentation is complete, the various parcels of wines are filled into barrels for ageing, remaining separate until blending is done. In any given year, 120 components are produced and made available for the final blend. That said even as wines are made from across the vines including the younger blocks, much of this remains purely for the team to continue to assess the vines and further their understanding of the various parcels - no wines made from the younger vines makes it to the final blend, whilst in total only 25-30% of the entirely vineyard's wines actually makes it to the bottle.

The flagship Screaming Eagle typically comes from the Cabernet Sauvignon vines grown on the western front of the site, whilst the Merlot that goes into The Flight is yielded from the old vines from the eastern lots. "And the Cabernet selection for The Flight is always about being fresh, light, and perfumey, without the firmer tannins that Cabernet can sometimes give. There is a ‘fresh’ end of the property that this tends to come from. Conversely, some other Merlot on the other side of the property doesn’t have the acidity, perfume, or brightness we want for The Flight.” Nick divulges.

Throughout the estate’s viticultural and vinicultural activities, the focus on diverse terroir, sustainable farming practices, commitment to producing small quantities of high-quality Cabernet Sauvignon wines is clear. These exacting standards upheld by Screaming Eagle’s winemakers and vineyard managers results in only a quarter to one-third of the grapes from the vineyard eventually making it to be bottled for consumption. That’s part of the reason why Screaming Eagle’s wines are so exclusive and so highly sought after.

Wine Review: Screaming Eagle The Flight 2015

Today we’re having a go at Screaming Eagle’s Merlot blend The Flight, this was originally released in 2006 under the label Second Flight, before being renamed to The Flight to reflect its Merlot dominance that sets it distinctively apart from the Screaming Eagle’s namesake Cabernet Sauvignon-led expression. The Flight is produced from 65% Merlot, 16% Cabernet Franc and 19% Cabernet Sauvignon, bottled at 15% ABV. This particular bottle is their 2015 vintage.

With all that said, let’s give it a go!     

Tasting Notes

Colour: Dark Ruby

Aroma: Immediately it’s off to a complex start with quite a bit going on - it’s this enmeshing of dark fruit and potpourri, with also a savoury salinity to it. It’s filled in with dried plums, prunes, blackberry and raspberry preserves and fruit leather, with also a floral potpourri and herbaceous aspect of rose petals, violets and lilies, as well as dried oregano. The salinity comes with a meatiness, akin to breakfast ham, with also a side of dried cranberries and cherries. It comes off rather gourmet, and at the same time really silky, deep and dark, as well as aromatic, yet nothing over the top. It’s elegant and complex, yet understated. It comes off complete, with a holistic balance of sweet and savoury, floral and herbaceous. There’s also a rusticity to it with an overlay of leather, hay and animal hide. With time it settles on dried fruits with a light mustiness and rancio, still giving dried prunes, plums, cranberries and figs, with a side of pastrami and freshly harvested mushrooms.

Taste: Medium bodied, and with great concentration and good saturation, it’s strikingly not over the top or heavily ripe. It’s gently lifted yet with some weightiness, very much plush and velvety, filled in with dark fruit reduction of plums and prunes, as well as dried red fruits of cherries and cranberries. The acidity is light, whilst the tannins firm and matted, softened by now. Some cocoa comes through as well, along with eucalyptus and dried herbs. It gains in its lifted quality with time, whilst maintaining its silkiness and concentration. The dried fruits persists, joined by some briny meatiness.

Finish: Touches of vanilla cream emerges now, with more on raspberries and dark cherries, as well as a more prominent meaty salinity and savouriness. Also eucalyptus here, and as it brightens up also some red liquorice. It’s a firm finish, with lingering cherry skins, some chalkiness as well as rose petals and perfumed talc powder.

My Thoughts

To clear the air - this isn’t as big, as loud, or as opulent as some might think Screaming Eagle to be. It’s in fact rather chiselled, svelte and almost gourmet. The fruits are dried and reduced, leaving room for more development in its complexity, of perfumed florals, savouriness, meatiness and herbaceousness. It’s incredibly complete, and subtly complex, with also great concentration and saturation. For the sake of illustration, it almost feels somewhere between a Left Bank Bordeaux (in aroma) and a Pomerol (on the palate).

I was particularly impressed by its bountiful and layered, yet harmonious aromas, which seem to keep on developing, whilst the concentration and complexity, rendered in chiselled precision on the palate was also particularly thought provoking and compelling. It’s elegant and precise, and would make for a great food pairing as I would imagine.

Till next time, happy sipping!

@ChopstickPride