Betz Family Winery Syrah La Serenne 07
Betz Family Winery Syrah La Serenne 07 Dark, dense and massive. The 07 La Serenne is as good as ANY Washington Syrah I've tasted. Buckets full of black fruit are shaded with ground coffee, vanilla and smoked meat. La Serenne storms your palate before a sexy, savory sweet interplay of blackberries, thyme, pepper and minerals lifts the finish. The 07 was still evolving after three days opened. Shockingly good Syrah. Marcus Robert Parker's Wine Advocate 93 Points The 2007 La Cote Rousse is 100% Syrah primarily from Kiona and Ciel du Cheval Vineyards. Purple/black in color with legs that ooze slowly down the glass, the nose reveals aromas of balsam wood, mineral, earth notes, blueberry and blackberry. Dense, layered, and youthful, the wine has enough structure to evolve for 6 8 years. This Hermitage like Syrah will drink well from 2014 to 2027. Betz Family Winery remains one of Washington's benchmarks for top quality wines from Rhone and Bordeaux grape varieties. Bob Betz's 2007 collection shows him continuing at the top of his game (with plenty of help from his family).
Once again, the Boushey Vineyard hit the mark. The small berried Syrah provided enormous strength and color in 2007. And it's more brooding, dense and jam packed than the past couple years. The nose is full of black and blue berries, smoke, spice, roasted meat. It enters plush, silky and thick, expanding with blackberry and a bit of this vineyard's "sauvage" character.
We've been farming the same block of Syrah in Dick Boushey's Vineyard for 8 years now, and have gotten to know this turf well. But 2007 is a slight anomaly: it's firmer and more brooding than most years, dense and concentrated. Yet through it all it maintains its typical seamless texture and lift. the winery
...from the Boushey vineyard, where the same rows have been farmed for Betz since 2000. Less than two tons/acre were picked in '07 – yielding a wine with even more concentration than usual. It's so compact that it's almost impenetrable, but the gorgeous aromas portend a glorious wine with appropriate bottle age and/or breathing time. A dark, dusty mix of black fruits, black olives, black coffee and licorice, this has such density that it's almost impossible to separate out all the fruit layers, let alone the earthier components that make Boushey syrah so distinctive. At 14.8% alcohol, this may be the biggest Betz Boushey Syrah ever, and definitely a wine to cellar. Paul Gregutt, Paulgregutt.com, Seattle Times
Previous Vintage Tasting Notes
2006 Vintage Tasting Notes
Betz Family Winery Syrah La Serenne 06 received 94 points from Robert Parker's Wine Advocate:
The 2006 Syrah La Serenne is the Betz interpretation of Hermitage. The wine is 100% varietal from the Boushey Vineyard located in Yakima Valley. Opaque purple colored, it offers enticing aromas of mineral, earth, crushed stone, pepper, and blueberry jam. This is followed by a massive but seamless wine with superb blue fruit and blackberry preserve flavors. This well balanced effort has a finish which seems to go on and on.
The winery describes the wine: Syrah La Serenne is the only one of our wines that clearly reflects a single clone of one variety from a single vineyard. So its style and character take the same direction every year.
The dominant "marker" for this terroir driven wine is texture: this Syrah from Dick Boushey's mid Yakima Valley vineyard has a seamlessness that none of our other wines have: it enters plush and stays that way through to the finish. Its rich black berry and black cherry aroma is enhanced by notes of smoked meat, cream and roasted earth. Black cherry, licorice and pepper flavors dominate the palate, with glimpses of tobacco, smoke and wood. Despite its supple texture La Serenne has the stuffing to cellar for many years. the winery
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