FLOAT 100 · Wine · No. 93
Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon 2012
A Napa real estate agent once made her first wine in a plastic trash can; two decades later her vineyard's 2012, picked unusually late in a gentle year, earned a perfect 100 from Robert Parker.
- Maker
- Screaming Eagle
- By price in wine
- 18 of 100
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Create a free account- Producer
- Screaming Eagle, Oakville, Napa Valley, California
- Founded
- 1986, when its founder, a Napa real estate agent, bought a 57-acre Oakville vineyard
- First vintage
- 1992
- 2012 blend
- 79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc
- Owner in 2012
- Stan Kroenke, sole owner since Charles Banks left in 2009
- Winemaker
- Nick Gislason
- Harvest
- Mid-October 2012, very late by the estate's standards
- Typical production
- About 500 to 850 cases of the Cabernet a year
- Robert Parker
- 100 points
- Sold
- Through a mailing list that was full by 2000
Eighty vines and a trash can
The founder of Screaming Eagle moved to Napa Valley as a dressmaker, opening a shop in Yountville in 1972, and by 1980 had switched to selling real estate, including some of the valley's vineyards. In 1986 she bought a 57-acre property of her own on the eastern side of the Oakville bench, off the Silverado Trail. Almost all of it was planted to white grapes. Only about one acre, roughly 80 vines, was Cabernet Sauvignon, and she tended those vines herself.
For several years she sold her grapes to neighboring wineries. In 1992 she made a batch of wine at home in a plastic trash can and drove a sample to a large neighboring winery to ask the staff whether it was any good. They encouraged her to bottle it, but snickered at the name she had in mind. She said it was going to be Screaming Eagle or nothing.
On the advice of the veteran winemaker Andre Tchelistcheff, she replanted the whole vineyard to Bordeaux red varieties, using Cabernet clone 7. The soil is close to a rock pile on a gentle west-facing slope, and rocks cleared from the vineyard went into the stone walls along the Silverado Trail. Afternoon breezes from San Pablo Bay cool the grapes after hot days.
From cult to billionaire's estate
The founder hired the consultant Richard Peterson and through him met his daughter, Heidi Peterson Barrett, who became Screaming Eagle's first winemaker. The 1992 debut, about 175 cases, was priced at $75 a bottle. Robert Parker gave it 99 points, later raising it to 100, and the wine became the model for what came to be called Napa's cult Cabernets. Sources differ on the release year, giving 1995 and 1996.
She refused partners and refused to grow, keeping production around 500 cases. In 2006 she sold the estate to the billionaire Stan Kroenke and Charles Banks. Banks left in April 2009, leaving Kroenke, whose sports holdings include several professional teams, as sole owner. The property is now about 70 acres, with the vineyard split into more than 50 blocks that are fermented separately in steel, concrete and oak.
By 2012 the wine was made by Nick Gislason, with Armand de Maigret as estate manager. The same year Screaming Eagle introduced a tiny Sauvignon Blanc, made in one or two barrels and sold at first for $250 a bottle.
2012: an easy year, a late pick
After the difficult, late 2010 and 2011 vintages, 2012 came as a relief across Northern California. Growing conditions were even through the season, the harvest generally came earlier than normal, and yields were higher than usual.
Screaming Eagle went the other way on timing. Because the season was long and temperate, Gislason waited until mid-October to pick, very late by the estate's historical standards. The result was a blend of 79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot and 4% Cabernet Franc, close to the roughly 80% Cabernet the grand vin usually contains.
Robert Parker scored the 2012 a perfect 100 in October 2014, describing an inky purple wine with aromas of pure blackcurrant liqueur, licorice, acacia flowers and graphite, full-bodied, opulent and voluptuous, built to age for 20 years or more. Antonio Galloni of Vinous scored it 95 to 97 from barrel, calling it one of the darker, more powerful wines of the year; de Maigret told him it reminded him of the 2007. Jeb Dunnuck also rated it perfect, with a lush, opulent style he judged just as good as the very different 2013.
How to know it
Screaming Eagle produces two reds: the Cabernet-based grand vin and a Merlot-dominant second wine, first called Second Flight and now The Flight. A bottle of the 2012 grand vin should read Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon, Oakville, Napa Valley. Critics describe the house style less as power than as silky texture, floral aromatics and fresh acidity.
The wine is sold almost entirely through the winery's mailing list, which filled by 2000 and has had a waiting list ever since. That keeps nearly every bottle on the secondary market at a steep premium over the release price.
On the market
Screaming Eagle is a fixture at charity wine auctions. In 2000 a 6-liter bottle of the 1992 sold for $500,000 at the Napa Valley charity auction, a record for years; in 2026 a 6-liter 1994 brought $290,000 at a Napa charity sale. Those are large-format bottles of other vintages, not prices for a standard 750ml 2012.
Single 750ml bottles of the 2012 trade through U.S. merchants. In October 2026 one U.S. merchant listed a bottle at $4,035.00 and another at $4,195.00.
The numbers
- Vineyard
- 48.21 acres of vines by one count; property about 70 acres
- Typical production
- About 500 to 850 cases of the Cabernet
- 2012 blend
- 79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc
- Robert Parker / Wine Advocate
- 100
- Vinous (barrel)
- 95-97
- Jeb Dunnuck
- 100
Timeline
Screaming Eagle's founder opens a dress shop in Yountville.
She buys a 57-acre Oakville vineyard planted mostly to white grapes.
She makes her first Screaming Eagle, about 175 cases, with Heidi Peterson Barrett.
A 6-liter bottle of the 1992 sells for $500,000 at the Napa Valley charity auction; the mailing list is full.
The founder sells the estate to Stan Kroenke and Charles Banks.
Charles Banks departs, leaving Kroenke as sole owner.
Screaming Eagle introduces a Sauvignon Blanc, made in one or two barrels.
Nick Gislason picks the 2012 in mid-October, very late for the estate.
Robert Parker scores the 2012 a perfect 100.
A 6-liter bottle of the 1994 sells for $290,000 at a Napa charity auction.
U.S. merchants list single bottles of the 2012 at $4,035.00 and $4,195.00.
The world in 2012
The cruise ship Costa Concordia runs aground off Italy; 32 people die.
CERN announces a new particle consistent with the Higgs boson.
The Summer Olympics open in London.
NASA's Curiosity rover lands on Mars.
Felix Baumgartner becomes the first person to break the sound barrier in free fall.
Hurricane Sandy forms; it goes on to kill more than 230 people.
Barack Obama is reelected president of the United States.
Price record
| Date | Price | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 3, 2026 | $4,035 | Asking price, not a saleOne 750ml bottle listed by a U.S. merchant. |
| Oct 3, 2026 | $4,195 | Asking price, not a saleOne 750ml bottle listed by a U.S. merchant. |
This is an asking price, not a sale. It is what a seller wanted on the date shown. Asking prices often sit above what buyers pay, but an ask is not a ceiling: a sale can land on either side of it. It is not a value.
By reference price, Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon 2012 is number 18 of 100 in the wine entries of the FLOAT 100. 12 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (93 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- The first Screaming Eagle was made at home in a plastic trash can.
- When the founder bought the vineyard, only about 80 vines were Cabernet Sauvignon.
- Staff at the neighboring winery that urged her to bottle the wine laughed at the name Screaming Eagle.
- Rocks cleared from the vineyard helped build the stone walls along Napa's Silverado Trail.
- The 1992 debut was priced at $75 a bottle.
- In a vintage when most of Napa picked early, Screaming Eagle waited until mid-October.
How this page is made
- The figure
- One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
- Realized or not
- A realized price is a completed sale. An asking price, an estimate and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
- The story
- Researched from published records and checked fact by fact. Updated Oct 3, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026