Lewelling Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Wight Vineyard 2006:
Normally a wine I buy every year. While I have cut down on my domestic purchases dramatically in recent years (this year less than a case of Cabernet I think) I still have a special place in my heart for Lewelling. The Wight Vineyard is one of the best places for Cabernet in the United States IMO and I am happy to still have bottles of '02 and '05 hanging around the cellar. So I took home a bottle of the '06 to see if the wine was still up to snuff. Dark and full-bodied, with sweet aromas of black cherry, creme de cassis and a dollop or two shaved pencil lead. The wine is packed and stacked at first . . . maybe too much in fact, so I left it to marinate. After a couple of hours I re-approached it while enjoying some Flannery Hanger steak tacos. The wine had calmed some and the addition of food was a big supplement to the somewhat cumbersome fruit. Smoke, vanilla, acacia and oak (though admittedly background) intermix with the fruit, most dark, black and sweet. Aromatic, intense, pure and robust, this is a wine that seems to have a plan (the plan was unfortunately different than mine, but I was up for an adventure). At this stage in development something wild and untamed like this is certainly not boring rather if you are up for the challenge of getting hazed than this wine is for you. (This is what I imagine being 65 years old and having a teenager at home is like. ) If all of the asinine imagery tells you anything it at least tells you that the wine made me think and that has mean something. What it means beyond that I don’t know. I will have to find a couch somewhere and talk to someone smart to really figure that out. For now I can only tell you what I thought of what I drank . . . 91 points
Opened a few 06’s to get a read on them- the Wight and Tamber Bey Oakville. Both wines after 3 hour decant are still very young and just starting to show their true profile. Compared to how they showed during our Napa trip in October I would say that they are holding back to where they were about a year ago. Very good with lot’s of upside.
I’ll let mine sit for 2-3 years before trying again.
The 04 Turnbull on the other hand has come along way and was really well integrated and ready to go. Best showing yet for me.
Fauxhawk, you write great notes - please keep 'em coming!
This really does capture the '06 Wight well - have you tried also the '06 Cab?