Winemaker
Elías Fernández
Winemaker, Shafer Vineyards
- Discipline
- Winemaker
Portrait of Elías Fernández
i. Biography
Elías Fernández is the head winemaker at Shafer Vineyards in Napa Valley's Stags Leap District, where he has crafted estate wines for over four decades. After studying enology at the University of California, Davis, he joined Shafer in 1984 as assistant winemaker and was promoted to head winemaker in 1994. His winemaking has garnered critical acclaim, including Food & Wine magazine's Winemaker of the Year award and Wine Spectator's #1 Wine of the Year for the 2008 Shafer Relentless.
