Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon 2016

One acre and a credit card

Screaming Eagle grows on the eastern side of the Oakville bench in the Napa Valley, near where the Oakville Cross Road meets the Silverado Trail, below the Dalla Valle and Tench vineyards. Hundreds of drivers pass it every day, and nothing at the gate announces it. The property had several names before this one: it was the Bert Rossi Vineyard in the 1920s, Pasadena Vineyards from the 1950s, and later El Retiro, a name the winery still holds as a fictitious business name.

Screaming Eagle's founder, a Napa real estate agent named Jean, bought the property in 1986. Accounts of its size differ: 57 acres in several sources, about 60 in others, about 70 in a local history. She later said she was so short of cash at the time that she paid the closing costs with a credit card. The vineyard was planted to a mix of varieties, most of which she sold to other Napa wineries, but one acre of Cabernet Sauvignon, about 80 vines by one count, she kept to herself.

On the advice of people at the Robert Mondavi Winery, who tasted a sample and encouraged her to bottle it separately (though they reportedly did not like the name), she moved from grower to winemaker. She hired the consultant Richard Peterson and then his daughter, Heidi Peterson Barrett, as her first winemaker. One account says she made home wine in a plastic trash can in 1992, the year of the first commercial vintage.

The 1992 Screaming Eagle became an overnight sensation after Robert Parker gave it 99 points. The sources disagree on the details of its launch: one says it was released in 1995 at $75 a bottle from about 175 cases; another says it was released in 1996 at $50 a bottle and that roughly 500 cases were made in each vintage. They agree that it helped start the era of California's cult Cabernets.

From the founder to Kroenke

In March 2006 the founder, then 60, sold the estate to Charles Banks, a 38-year-old San Francisco money manager, and his partner Stan Kroenke, the real estate developer and owner of the Denver Nuggets and the Colorado Avalanche. She disclosed the sale in a handwritten letter to Wine Spectator: 'Someone made me an offer, and I thought it was time to slow down.' Terms were not disclosed. Wine Spectator estimated the deal could be worth $20 million to $30 million or more; another account says it was rumored to be around $30 million.

The new owners hired the vineyard manager David Abreu and replanted much of the property, about 30 acres in 2006 by one account, which also let them end contracts that had sent much of the fruit to other wineries. They built a new gravity-flow winery with a cave beside the original stone winery, which they kept. In April 2009 Banks and Kroenke dissolved their partnership, leaving Kroenke as sole owner.

The winemakers have changed while the style has not. Barrett made the early vintages; Andy Erickson followed, the first winemaker under the new owners; and in September 2012 Nick Gislason, then 29 and formerly of Harlan Estate, was named winemaker. One story the winery tells: part of the first vintage was aged in a barrel with an engraved top, and that same barrel has been reused for every vintage since, for luck.

2016: less fruit, no regrets

For many Napa vintners, 2016 extended a run of exceptional Cabernet years to five in a row. The growing season swung from hot to cool and back, but without the sharp heat spikes the valley is known for, and fruit ripened in waves, with rocky, dry, west-facing sites ripening first. One consultant estimated yields came in about 20 percent below expectations because of fewer and lighter clusters. September was good; then one of the wettest Octobers in decades brought harvest to a quick end.

The Screaming Eagle vineyard has rocky, stony, gravelly soils with loam and clay, slopes and a west-facing exposure, and it is often one of the first in its part of the valley to be picked. The 2016 is 79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% Merlot and 8% Cabernet Franc, slightly more Cabernet than the 2015, according to one critic's note.

Critics were effusive. In barrel, Wine Advocate gave it 98-100 and described a wine 'very tightly wound and with wonderful energy.' The final Wine Advocate review, as quoted by retailers, scored it 100 and praised its 'amazing freshness' and 'epic length and depth.' Another critic called it 'a towering, statuesque wine of the very highest level' that 'literally does scream.'

From mailing list to secondary market

Screaming Eagle is sold to a mailing list that, by one account, has been full since 2000 with a waiting list several thousand names long. Release prices have climbed steadily: about $300 a bottle by the time the founder sold in 2006, $750 soon after, and $850 for the 2010. The 2016 was reported released in the United States at $1,050 a bottle, and merchants were soon offering it at about $3,000.

In September 2023 a private library collection of Screaming Eagle came up in an online sale based in Los Angeles. A three-bottle lot of the 2016 sold for $13,750 against an estimate of $8,000 to $14,000. As of October 2026 a US retailer listed a single 750 ml bottle at $3,985.

How to know one

Since the 2010 vintage, every bottle of Screaming Eagle and its second wine has carried a bubble-coded security label fixed between the foil and the bottle. It cannot be removed without visibly damaging the seal and foil, and the serial number can be checked on the winery's website. A 2016 should carry it.

The estate makes three wines. Screaming Eagle itself is the Cabernet-led flagship, drawn mainly from Cabernet on the western side of the property. The second wine, first released in 2012 as Second Flight and now labeled The Flight, is Merlot-led and comes from younger vines and wine not selected for the flagship. A Sauvignon Blanc, first made in 2012, is produced in tiny amounts.

The vineyard is farmed in more than 50 separate blocks, vinified separately in small tanks, barrels and other vessels, with more than 120 potential lots to choose from in a typical year. About 100,000 vines carry numbered stainless steel tags so each can be tracked individually.

The numbers

Vineyard

About 45 acres under vine on a nearly 60-acre property (one source gives 48 planted acres)

Flagship blocks

About 22 to 23 acres used for Screaming Eagle, per one account

Typical production

500-850 cases (one source); 400-750 cases, or 5,000-9,000 bottles (another)

2016 blend

79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc

Wine Advocate

100 (barrel sample 98-100)

Timeline

1. 1986

   The founder, a Napa real estate agent, buys the Oakville property, paying the closing costs with a credit card.

2. 1989

   The founder registers Screaming Eagle as a fictitious business name.

3. 1992

   First vintage, made by Heidi Peterson Barrett from a small block of Cabernet.

4. 1995

   The 1992 is released (one account says 1996) and earns 99 points from Robert Parker.

5. 2000

   A 6-liter bottle of the 1992 sells for $500,000 at the Napa Valley charity wine auction.

6. Mar 2006

   The founder sells the estate to Charles Banks and Stan Kroenke; replanting begins with David Abreu.

7. Apr 2009

   Banks leaves; Kroenke becomes sole owner.

8. 2010

   Bubble-coded anti-counterfeiting labels begin with the 2010 vintage.

9. 2012

   Second Flight and a Sauvignon Blanc are introduced.

10. Sep 2012

    Nick Gislason, 29, is named winemaker.

11. 2016

    A short-crop Napa vintage ends early with heavy October rain. The 2016 is 79% Cabernet Sauvignon.

12. 2017

    Most of the 2017 crop is declassified after wildfire smoke; list members get one magnum each.

13. Sep 13, 2023

    Three bottles of the 2016 sell for $13,750 in an online sale based in Los Angeles.

14. Oct 2026

    A US retailer lists a 750 ml bottle of the 2016 at $3,985.

The world in 2016

• Jan 28, 2016

  The World Health Organization announces an outbreak of the Zika virus.

• May 9, 2016

  Rodrigo Duterte is elected president of the Philippines.

• Jun 23, 2016

  The United Kingdom votes in a referendum to leave the European Union.

• Aug 5, 2016

  The Summer Olympics open in Rio de Janeiro, the first held in South America.

• Nov 2, 2016

  The Chicago Cubs win the World Series for the first time since 1908.

• Nov 8, 2016

  Donald Trump is elected the 45th president of the United States.

Price record

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 2016 is number 19 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 (14 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The founder paid the closing costs on the vineyard with a credit card.
• A barrel with an engraved top used for the first vintage has been reused for every vintage since, for luck.
• Robert Mondavi Winery staff encouraged the founder to bottle her wine but reportedly did not like the name Screaming Eagle.
• Before Screaming Eagle, the founder ran a dress shop in Yountville and, as a land broker, helped sell the property that became Groth Winery.
• Each of the vineyard's roughly 100,000 vines wears a numbered stainless steel tag.
• In 1992 Barrett also made a private-label Cabernet for the founder's real estate firm, half from Screaming Eagle grapes.