FLOAT 100 · Wine · No. 15
Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon 2018
After wildfire smoke wiped out most of its 2017 crop, Napa's most famous cult Cabernet got a long, cool, late season in 2018, picked its single vineyard over six weeks, and made a wine one critic called 'built like a brick house.'
- Maker
- Screaming Eagle
- By price in wine
- 24 of 100
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Create a free account- Producer
- Screaming Eagle Winery and Vineyards, Oakville, Napa Valley, California
- Founded
- 1986, when the founder, a Napa real estate agent, bought the property; first vintage 1992
- Owner
- Stan Kroenke, sole proprietor since April 2009
- Winemaker
- Nick Gislason, named winemaker in September 2012
- Blend
- 77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot and 8% Cabernet Franc
- Vintage
- 2018: cool, even and late, with a large crop across Napa
- Harvest
- Spread over six weeks on the one contiguous property
- Wine Advocate
- 100 points (Lisa Perrotti-Brown, November 2020)
- Typical production
- Roughly 500 to 850 cases a year, by one account; 400 to 750 by another
- Format
- 750 ml bottle
A gardener's vineyard
Screaming Eagle sits off the Silverado Trail near the Oakville Cross Road, below the Dalla Valle and Tench vineyards. There is no sign. Visitors drive in through a modest cattle gate, a nod to its unassuming beginnings.
Screaming Eagle's founder, a Napa real estate agent named Jean, bought the property in 1986 and paid the closing costs with a credit card. She sold most of her grapes to other wineries at first, kept one small block of Cabernet Sauvignon for herself, and in 1992 made the first Screaming Eagle with the winemaker Heidi Peterson Barrett. Robert Parker gave that first vintage 99 points, and it helped launch the era of California's cult Cabernets.
The founder 'was a gardener,' Gislason has said. 'Her planting decisions were mostly based on good sense and intuition.' His favorite example is a block of Merlot she planted on gravelly soil facing the Silverado Trail, on an old riverbed fed by underground water from the hills, against advice that Cabernet would do better there. That block became the backbone of the estate's Merlot-led second wine, The Flight.
The Kroenke era
In March 2006 the founder sold the estate to Charles Banks, a San Francisco money manager, and Stan Kroenke, the real estate developer and sports team owner. Wine Spectator estimated the deal could be worth $20 million to $30 million or more. The new owners hired the vineyard manager David Abreu, replanted much of the property, and built a new winery and cave while keeping the original stone winery. In April 2009 Banks left, and Kroenke became sole owner.
Kroenke owns other wine estates too, including Jonata and The Hilt in Santa Barbara County and, since January 2017, the Burgundy domaine Bonneau du Martray. In Napa he co-owns the Meadowood resort with Bill Harlan, according to one local history.
Gislason, formerly of Harlan Estate, was named winemaker in September 2012 at 29. He farms the vineyard vine by vine: about 100,000 vines carry numbered stainless steel tags, the winery has 50 small tanks so each block can be picked and fermented when it is ready, and a typical year offers more than 120 potential lots for the final blends.
2018: the bloom after the fire
The 2017 vintage was a hard one at Screaming Eagle. Wildfire smoke led the estate to declassify most of the harvest into its second wine, and longtime mailing list customers were allotted one magnum each.
2018 was the opposite. The year began with some winter rain and a mild spring, leading to a late bud break and an easy flowering that set large crops across the valley. Summer was cool to warm rather than hot, with foggy mornings and hazy afternoons, and much of Napa's Cabernet did not go through veraison until well into August. Napa Valley Vintners reported crops 20 to 30 percent above average. Harvest was late, and in the first week of November there was still Cabernet hanging in parts of the valley. Wildfire smoke touched some high-elevation areas, mainly Atlas Peak and parts of Howell Mountain, not the valley floor at Oakville.
'I loved it!' Gislason told the critic Lisa Perrotti-Brown. 'Everything is just really perfumey with a lot of verve and a lot of freshness... The canopies were big and healthy; there was a lot of life in the vineyard. After 2017, it felt like the bloom that comes afterward.' On the one contiguous property, he said, they harvested over six weeks.
What the critics said
Perrotti-Brown, reviewing for Wine Advocate in November 2020, gave the 2018 100 points: 'Medium-bodied with jaw-dropping elegance, the palate is finely textured and yet built like a brick house with a super taut backbone and exquisitely knit acidity... Undeniably stunning.' She suggested drinking it from 2025 to 2065. Writing again for The Wine Independent in May 2024, she gave it 100 again and noted the blend: 15% Merlot and 8% Cabernet Franc with the Cabernet Sauvignon. One merchant gives the Cabernet Sauvignon share as 77%.
Antonio Galloni of Vinous scored it 98+ in December 2020, calling it 'a knock-out from the very first taste' with 'an exoticism that I find especially alluring.' Jeb Dunnuck, who tasted it in January 2021, scored it 97 and said it 'needs to be forgotten for at least 4-5 years and should evolve for 2-3 decades.'
Those notes match the vintage's reputation in Napa: the best 2018s are medium-bodied and moderate in alcohol, with tannins that ripened at lower sugar levels than in warmer years like 2015, 2016 and 2019, and the structure to age for decades.
Price and how to know one
Screaming Eagle is sold first to a mailing list; release prices are not published, and the sources consulted for this page do not state the 2018 release price. In September 2023, in an online sale of a private library collection based in Los Angeles, a three-bottle lot of the 2018 sold for $15,000 against an estimate of $7,500 to $10,000. As of October 2026, one US merchant listed a single 750 ml bottle at $2,995, and another listed a three-bottle original wooden case at $11,900 (sold out).
Since the 2010 vintage every bottle of Screaming Eagle has carried a bubble-coded security label fixed between the foil and the bottle, with a serial number that can be verified on the winery's website. The label cannot be removed without visibly damaging the seal and foil.
The numbers
- Vineyard
- About 45 acres under vine on a nearly 60-acre property (one source gives 48 planted acres)
- Typical production
- 500-850 cases (one source); 400-750 cases, or 5,000-9,000 bottles (another)
- 2018 blend
- 77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot and 8% Cabernet Franc
- Wine Advocate
- 100 (Lisa Perrotti-Brown, November 2020)
- The Wine Independent
- 100 (Lisa Perrotti-Brown, May 2024)
- Vinous
- 98+ (Antonio Galloni, December 2020)
- Jeb Dunnuck
- 97 (tasted January 2021)
Timeline
The founder, a Napa real estate agent, buys the Oakville property.
First vintage of Screaming Eagle, made by Heidi Peterson Barrett.
The founder sells the estate to Charles Banks and Stan Kroenke.
Banks leaves; Kroenke becomes sole owner.
Bubble-coded anti-counterfeiting labels begin with the 2010 vintage.
Nick Gislason, 29, is named winemaker.
Most of the 2017 crop is declassified after wildfire smoke.
A cool, late Napa season with a large crop; Screaming Eagle harvests over six weeks.
Wine Advocate publishes a 100-point review of the 2018.
Vinous scores the 2018 98+.
Jeb Dunnuck tastes the 2018 and scores it 97.
Three bottles of the 2018 sell for $15,000 in an online sale based in Los Angeles.
The Wine Independent scores the 2018 100.
A US merchant lists a 750 ml bottle at $2,995.
The world in 2018
Kim Jong Un crosses into South Korea, the first North Korean leader to cross the DMZ since 1953.
Prince Harry marries Meghan Markle at Windsor.
France beats Croatia 4-2 to win the World Cup in Russia.
Apple becomes the first public company valued at $1 trillion.
Greta Thunberg, 15, begins skipping school to protest inaction on climate change.
Journalist Jamal Khashoggi is murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
The Camp Fire ignites in Butte County, becoming California's deadliest wildfire.
NASA's InSight lander touches down on Mars.
Price record
| Date | Price | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 2026 | $2,995 | Asking price, not a saleUS merchant list price per 750 ml bottle. Not a sale. |
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 2018 is number 24 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 (15 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- The vineyard has no sign; you enter through a cattle gate.
- The founder planted her best Merlot where advisers told her to plant Cabernet.
- In 2018 the estate harvested its single contiguous vineyard over six weeks.
- Napa County's red wine grape harvest was 137,335 tons in 2018, against 121,100 tons in 2019, according to the county's 2019 crop report.
- After smoke ruined most of the 2017 harvest, longtime list customers got one magnum each.
- Each of the vineyard's roughly 100,000 vines carries a numbered stainless steel tag.
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 1, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026