The recent thread on Lewelling made me realize I’d been sitting on these forever, and was excited to try them both. These are really excellent, fun wines, and and clearly the similarities are there. However, the HayFork still had a younger Cabernet nose, and was more fruit forward. Neither wine was really showing any demonstrable secondary characteristics at this point, but the Lewelling was just much more structured, and presented itself as a complete wine experience, whereas the HayFork was flashy upfront and then nothing. If I had to guess, Lewelling was picked earlier. A fun wine experience, no doubt!
We sell the couple cases we get each year so be clear technically I sell them. Regardless, big fan of cooler vintages, 2007 was really good young, but missed the zip to really age.
From the Lewelling website Haley is now the winemaker at Lewelling, replacing David. (Hayfork is Haley’s project). Anyone have a sense if this will change the Lewelling cabs at all? And what vintage was her first?
We visited Haley in June.
According to her, she picks Hayfork a few days before Lewelling is picked.
She also said that her uncle is still (and will always be) the winemaker at Lewelling.
(But she certainly seems to be taking on much more responsibility.)
And the '15 Hayfork (esp the Field Select) is spectacular.
![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}