2019 Lewelling Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon St. Helena

Community Tasting Notes (8) Avg Score: 93.6 points

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  7/19/2023 - AGELVIS Likes this wine: 93 Points

  90 min double decant. Deep dark rich magenta color. Blueberry pie, boysenberry, angel food cake, dark chocolate fondant, and fennel. Smooth, dry palate, with soft acidity. Firm tannins on the longish finish.
  
  This is a bold and fruit forward, but currently lacks some balance. It’s a bit too intense and a bit too jammy/confectionery. Even so, I thoroughly enjoyed drinking it and it will absolutely continue to improve over the next two years.

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  7/3/2023 - Badmonkey wrote: 92 Points

  Early fourth of July get together at my parents. Dark ruby fruit - currants, blackberry, dark cherry, and plum. Smooth mid-palate with solid depth/concentration but rather rich/sweet. If tasting blind I would have bet a quality syrah. Nice rich flavors of cassis, some spice, and plum. Fairly long finish. Popped/poured but drank out of a decanter for a couple hours. Not much improvement with time but appears to be at a nice drinking point. Drank next to a 2020 Quivet Napa cab and I thought the Quivet was a couple points better - not as rich/sweet plus more of a classic cab profile. 92 for the Lewelling and 94 for the Quivet. 100% cab.

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  6/22/2023 - Hi.its.Don.4.Wine Likes this wine: 95 Points

  A Two Bottle Case
  
  Wondering how, or who, makes a 2-bottle case? Well, there’s a little more detail to that equation. Technically, it isn’t a 2-bottle case; this particular winery only produces 2 wines, so from my highly analytical mind, I deduced that there must be a 2-bottle case somewhere. Maybe a wooden box with 2 bottles, one of each of their selections? Come on, you try making up titles for a few hundred posts and see what you come up with!
  
  Enough bickering, let’s see what today’s post brings us.
  
  Lewelling Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon 2019
  
  So as to be extra precise, this bottling also comes from their winery’s Lewelling Vineyard. That’s important as their other bottling comes from their Wight Vineyard. Adding the vineyard to the wine name seemed redundant and took too many spaces, so I shortened it.
  
  From the family vineyards in St. Helena that were established in 1864, the winery is still owned and run by members of the Lewellen family since 1950, making it one of the oldest continuously owned and farmed vineyards in the Napa Valley. This wine is composed of 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, aged for 20 months in 70% new French oak Barrels, and then finished with no fining or filtering with a scant 950 case production.
  
  As for my review, I must note that I was unable to afford the wine my usual 2-hour decant as I opened the wine while my daughter and fiancé were visiting and after we had just returned from watching Chicago dye its river green for St. Paddy’s Day (first and last time I will attend that occasion), and we arrived back home starving and thirsty.
  
  The wine still showed bright, literally. Bright fruit of dark red berries and that Cabernet cassis flavoring. The rich fruit pleasantly offset the brightness, or acidity, even without aeration. The tannins while smooth were present and I’m sure with more time in the bottle or a longer decant, they would have mellowed even more.
  
  Overall, a wonderful wine to drink now, but if you can wait, I think you’ll be rewarded even more. I was lucky enough to procure a number of bottles and am looking forward to giving the wine its proper due.
  
  Cheers

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  1/27/2023 - cavanaughkj Likes this wine: 95 Points

  This wine drinks amazing for being so young. Fruit forward, full mouth and lots of red and black fruit. Tannic and velvety.

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  1/22/2023 - JLuch1 wrote:

  Decanted day one for a couple hours and saved half the bottle and tried a sip day two. Short story, it is not ready to drink and I wouldn’t recommend doing so even with a long decant. Saving the rest to try again on day three, four, or maybe five to see when this wine calms down.
  
  Has the stuffing to become a solid wine but nothing is in synch right now and with the ~16% ABV, it’s a lot to handle.
  
  Hold

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