Dear Friends of Wine,

Welcome to Schrader Cellars. We are proud to present a dynamic portfolio of single vineyard wines from Napa Valley's most historic estates along with our efforts in California's emerging appellations.

We are delighted to report we enjoyed the most beautiful summer here in the Napa Valley that either of us can remember — consistent warm temperatures with plenty of "heat days" to move our clusters forward to optimal ripeness, but without the extreme heat spikes typical to late August and early September. Though the season started off with a somewhat light fruit set, the vigor of the vines combined with the favorable temperatures produced clusters with great structure and maturity and in the end, we brought in a spectacular 2009 harvest.

This month, we celebrate the release of our 2007 vintage Aston Estate Sonoma Coast Pinot Noirs! For everything you have heard about the much-heralded 2007 vintage, good news, it’s all true! Thanks to the efforts of our talented winemaker, Thomas Brown, and his outstanding team, we feel the 2007 Pinots are the finest Aston Estate wines we have ever produced from this remarkable vineyard estate. For our mailing list customers, we encourage you to act quickly and take advantage of this opportunity to purchase these spectacular Pinots as the 2007 vintage quantities are extremely limited.
Click here to visit Aston Estate.

This past year has been very exciting and extremely rewarding for Schrader Cellars as we received historic recognition on our 2006 vintage Cabernet Sauvignons from the nation’s top wine critics.

In 30-years of reviewing wines, renowned critic Robert M. Parker, The Wine Advocate, had never before awarded two perfect 100 point ratings to one American winery for two Cabernet Sauvignons from the same vintage. Well my friends, in a history-making move that left us speechless, Mr. Parker awarded our 2006 Schrader "Old Sparky" and 2006 Schrader CCS Cabernets two "perfect" 100 point scores!

Complementing this success, Mr. Parker gave our 2007 vintage Schrader Cabernets top barrel scores ratings of 98-100 points — yikes! We look forward with great excitement to Mr. Parker’s return this year when he will taste our bottled wines from this exceptional vintage.

More good news, Senior Editor James Laube, Wine Spectator, awarded two 99 point top score ratings to our 2006 Schrader "Old Sparky" and 2006 Schrader T6 Cabernets. To date, 99 points is the highest score ever awarded to an American wine by Wine Spectator through their blind tasting program and it was the first time in the magazine’s history one American winery had received two top ratings.

Most recently, our 2005 Schrader CCS Cabernet was voted the #1 top scoring wine (by a 20+ point margin) at the prestigious Executive Wine Seminars review of 2005 vintage Cabernets. This was a perfect follow-up the 2008 Executive Wine Seminar "Big Time" Cabernet tasting moderated by Robert Parker when our 2004 SchraderCabernet was also voted the #1 wine amongst a flight of Napa Valley Cabernet legends.

Now, we eagerly await the release of the Wine Spectator 2009 Annual Cabernet Report. Last year, our 2005 Schrader T6 Cabernet Sauvignon was #20 on the "TOP 100" list (the highest ranked California Cabernet) and our 2005 Schrader T6 Cabernet and 2005 Schrader CCS Cabernet grabbed spots on James Laube’s celebrated "Top-Scoring California Cabernets" for 2008. It was a great honor to be part of these prestigious rosters.

In closing, we want to thank you for your continued support and enthusiasm for our wine program. For us, sharing our wines with friends and family is the most enjoyable part of making wine. We look forward to creating a great experience for you from start to finish.

All our best,