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Betz Family Winery

 

Sunset Magazine logoBob Betz, MW Sunset Magazine's Winemaker of the Year 2007: " the knowledge of an academic propelled by the passion of an artisan… … Betz helped establish the quality that put Washington on the map". Bob Betz's Betz Family Winery is a small, family owned and run winery with a closed mailing list and a string of very highly rated red wines. Bob uses careful, meticulously executed read more

Betz Pere de Famille Cabernet Sauvignon 06

Price: $66.95

$60.26 - Any 12 bottles
- regular size (375 or 750 ml)


Betz Pere de Famille 06 received 95 points from Robert Parker's Wine Advocate: "Opaque purple, the wine has a brooding nose of wood smoke, earth notes, mineral, spice box, black cherry, and blackberry. This is followed by a laye...read more

95 Point Washington Reds Six Pack

$296.95 - Case price
(any 12 or more bottles)


95 Point Washington Reds Six Pack

2 bottles Columbia Crest Reserve Cab 05
(Wine Spectator 95 points) $27.95

2 bottles Betz Pere...read more

Betz Clos de Betz 06

$44.95 - Case price
(any 12 or more bottles)

Price: $49.95

Qty.

Clos de Betz 06 received 93 points from Robert Parker's Wine Advocate: "Purple/black in color, it reveals a fragrant nose of pain grille, pencil lead, scorched earth, black cherry, blackberry, and plum. This leads to a smooth-tex...read more

Betz Family Winery Syrah La Cote Rousse 06

Price: $59.95

$53.95 - Any 12 bottles
- regular size (375 or 750 ml)


Betz Family Winery Syrah La Cote Rousse 06 received 95 points from Robert Parker's Wine Advocate: "The 2006 Syrah La Cote Rousse is 100% varietal sourced from two vineyards, Purple/black in color, it offers up an array of aromas ...read more

Betz Family Winery Syrah La Serenne 06

Price: $59.95

$53.95 - Any 12 bottles
- regular size (375 or 750 ml)


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 Yaki...read more

Betz Family Winery Grenache Besoleil 06

Price: $49.95

$44.95 - Any 12 bottles
- regular size (375 or 750 ml)


Betz Family Winery Grenache Besoleil 06 received 93 points from Robert parker's Wine Advocate: "The Rhone portion of the portfolio begins with Betz’s take on Chateauneuf du Pape. The 2006 Besoleil is composed of 75% Grenache, 13% Syrah, and 12% ...read more

MAGNUM- Betz Syrah "La Serenne" 06

Price: $120.00

$108.00 - Any 12 bottles
- regular size (375 or 750 ml)


93 Points from Parker's Wine Advocate and Wine Spectator. Double size bottle, beautiful for parties, special occasions, and recommended size for best aging.

Previous vintage, 2005 tasting notes: Dense black fruits, roasted coffee, earthy arom...read more

MAGNUM- Betz "La Cote Rousse" 06

$108.00 - Case price
(any 12 or more bottles)

Price: $120.00

Qty.

95 Points from Parker's Wine Advocate. Double size bottle, beautiful for parties, special occasions, and recommended size for best aging.

Previous vintage, 2005 notes: Wine Spectator 95 Points Deep, dark, dense and powerful, a reverbe...read more

 

MORE INFORMATION

Sunset Magazine logoBob Betz, MW Sunset Magazine's Winemaker of the Year 2007: " the knowledge of an academic propelled by the passion of an artisan… … Betz helped establish the quality that put Washington on the map". Bob Betz's Betz Family Winery is a small, family owned and run winery with a closed mailing list and a string of very highly rated red wines. Bob uses careful, meticulously executed methods that he believes craft superior wine. He strives to create wines of individual character, incorporating a blend of richness, balance and pleasure. His winemaking focuses on the expression of the individual varieties' character, and the terroir of the vineyard.


Read

"Betz Gets It"

by Christina Kelly

 

Betz Family Winery

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Bob Betz's Betz Family Winery is a small, family owned and run winery with a closed mailing list and a string of very highly rated red wines. Bob uses careful, meticulously executed methods that he believes craft superior wine. He strives to create wines of individual character, incorporating a blend of richness, balance and pleasure. His winemaking focuses on the expression of the individual varieties' character, and the terroir of the vineyard.



Bob and wife Kathy

The New Winery

After several years of working out of an industrial park, the Betz family now make wine from their new, dedicated facility.

"Its purpose is simply to help us make better wine, the layout arranged to accommodate those things we hold sacred to winemaking. It's not a grand destination, there isn't a tasting room or tour, we aren't open to the public, but the tools are in place to ratchet up our commitment to the best wines Washington can produce. And starting with this 2005 harvest, all our winemaking is in the new winery."

They designed the winery "to reinforce their winemaking priorities: barrels stored underground at a constant cool temperature, ceilings high to accommodate their gravity flow techniques, concrete and metal materials used for efficient sanitation, floor drains set in the right place, and plenty of space to move equipment around."

Sorting grapes

Sorting Grapes

The new winery is "not a lot bigger, but a much smarter arrangement, about 5000 square feet, building in drains in the right places, insulation that is not exposed, a minimum of wood used, concrete that can be cleaned easily. We tried to use some gravity feed in our design, all of the barrel room is underground, to take advantage of natural cooling, but we’ll use a fork lift to gravity feed the juice from place to place” , according to Bob.

Bob says it’s important to use gravity feed: "we've got a lot of tannin in Washington red grapes, Cabernet especially, and every time you put those through a pump, you get opportunity to shear the seeds, open up the little packets of tannin in the skins. There's plenty of tannins already".

Gravity feed is used throughout grape processing- "we dump the grapes onto a table with the fork lift, sort out the grapes that you don't want to make wines out of, use gravity to dump those grapes into a bin. A forklift is then used to dump the grapes into the hopper and then from the hopper into the destemmer crusher, and then from the destemmer crusher, we use gravity to move it into into the fermenter. So we never pump our grapes and I think it makes a great difference in phenolic management. In many cases we don't even crush the berries but simply remove them from the stems, another technique to increase the wine's mouthfeel."

“It's one of Washington's challenges, and opportunities, controlling tannins, the whole phenolic picture of its red grapes. To me, this is an important step - a lot of folks pump the juice extracted from the grapes, in fact most everyone does. Because we do not want to pump the juice, we designed a small funnel that fits in the top of the fermenter and lets us use gravity to drop the juice into the fermenter. I think it's [not pumping] a big deal, for what we want to achieve with our wines.”

"We ferment each lot separately in small tanks, and punch them down by hand twice each day throughout the 6 to 10 day fermentation. (By the end of harvest we're in better shape than when we started!)"

Bob Betz with Barrel

 “Since everything here is punched down by hand, it’s very hard work.  Fully forty percent  of the volume in a fermenter is cap- stems and seeds. It’s very hard work to punch it down.” 

Bob is quite innovative in the processing of his grapes. He devised a device that uses a power jack, and pushing a couple of buttons, to plunge down through the cap and perform punchdown without having to use his own strength to do the work.

Bob says “A lot of the innovative tools we’ve created are because "I'm old". We designed our own press, and it was a huge step forward. When we first started making wine, we used a small basket press that could not accommodate much more than a home winemaker would press. Because we like the way it worked, when we needed a bigger press we simply built one that scaled it up, to capture those things we love so much about a basket press. In fact, the guy who built it for me sold the design to a company in CA.”

Bob deliberately chooses to use “low tech” equipment. His press requires that he continually monitor it, deciding when to stop pressing. (The more grapes are pressed, the more tannic and stemmy the juice coming from them becomes.)

While some wineries press grapes until the “must” that is left over is almost dry to the touch, fine winemakers don’t want the lower quality juice that comes from pressing to dryness. Most presses today are setup with automatic controls. You just set the computer controls to press at a certain level, and to stop at a certain point, and then leave it to run. Bob’s philosophy is quite different. His equipment is deliberately low-tech.

Betz Wine Press

“It's [The basket press] an extremely gentle treatment for red grapes, and it has no computer program, exactly as I wanted.  I want something that forces me to make the decisions about when to stop pressing.  We built it so that the outflow from the press can be tasted, and when the fraction we are into becomes lower quality than I’d like, we stop. We could get a lot more volume out of it, but it's a great tool that makes the winemaker decide what he or she should do, to decide when to stop pressing. I don’t want to depend on a computer program but to taste to make the decision on when to stop", says Bob.

Making the Wine

When it comes to the processing of the precious grapes and their juice, Bob's attention to detail is apparent.

"We know each lot and its particular character, measuring sugar, alcohol and temperature, and tasting each of them twice a day during fermentation. We use different yeast strains, specific to the variety and vineyard. Each is selected for a particular result."

"In our effort to produce wines that are full and supple at the same time, wines are pressed off when they achieve the right extraction of character, fruit and tannin, even if the wine is not "sugar dry", that is, before all the sugar is converted to alcohol and carbon dioxide. We then complete this primary (alcoholic) fermentation in barrel. Rather than a pre-programmed "press cycle", we constantly taste at the wine being pressed out of the skins and stop the process when the wine coming out loses its sweet/supple character. We get less wine, but it supports our goal of richness without a hard mouthfeel."

Wine Quality and Contamination

Bob is particularly concerned about yeast and bacterial contamination of the wine while under production. He's articulate on the problem of bretanomyces contamination, a common yeast infection present at some levels in many Washington wines. Bretanomyces (Brett) is a common spoilage organism in winemaking. While low levels of Brett are sometimes considered by some to be a good thing, adding complexity to some wines, others consider its presence a flaw, and rate wines down if it is present.

The common words describing the effect of Brett on wine are "barnyard, sweaty stables, rancidly horsey, animal shed, cheesy, and animal-like". Brett appears much more often in red than in white wines, and in Washington, is often present in highend "big reds". Not necesarily a bad thing, Brett does, however, change the flavor of the grape varietal, offering added flavors in the same way that barrel toast or pollen and oils from nearby plants change a wine. While interesting, controversy swirls over whether these alien influences should be in the flavor.

The more extracted in style a wine is, made from super-ripe grapes with a higher PH, the less effective SO2 is at preventing it. Old barrels, or barrels left in a warm place without adequate treatment, are also prime sources of Brett. Bob stores his barrels at 45 degrees -- higher temperatures can encourage the growth of contaminants.

At this time, Bob has not had to filter his wines (to remove bacteria), but if the wine shows signs of contamination, he would not hesitate to filter. He sends out his wines for extensive testing, and the last test showed that Bret was below testing levels (in effect, not present).

Barrels at Betz Family Winery

Bob uses 100% French oak barrels for his wines. He did a lot of trials with American, Hungarian, and Russian barrels, but finds them too coarse. He has taken the wine aged in them out of his blends when he has used them.

In 1997 they used 100% new oak, but he's using less and less new oak as time goes on. For theCabernet Sauvignon "Pere de Famille". he's using 65% new oak, while for the southern Rhone-style wines, he'll use all neutral barrels.

Bob says "The older I get, the less woody impresssion I want."

Bob uses a mix of four coopers- "Sylvain is the sweetest, it delivers a very gentle sense of oakiness- more vanilla directed than the others. Alain Fouquet is very similar to Seguin Moreau- creamy, vanilla, slightly nutty. Alain used to work at Seguin Moreau."

He uses barrels from Soree, and finds them "more profound, without being coarse, it makes more of a statement, contributes more of a particular tannin that comes out of oak" He really likes it, but uses it cautiously.

Read more about the Winery Here:

Betz Family Wines Rolls On After Bob’s “Retirement” New Wines, Great Scores,
New Additions to the Family

By Christina Kelly
Avalon Editor/Writer
2/04

“Betz Family Wines Truly a Family Affair”
By Christina Kelly
Avalon Editor/Writer
9/03

About Bob Betz
(from the winery)

Bob makes the wines at Betz Family Winery, the realization of a life-long passion. Since the early 1970's, Bob has been wandering the vineyards in Europe and the US to better understand the why and how of crafting fine wine. His philosophy is pretty simple: don't mess up what the vineyards have provided. Start with the highest quality fruit you can, treat it vigorously when necessary, gently most of the time, and stay out of its way but watch it closely. Allow the wines to develop slowly, and make sure they provide pleasure.

Bob holds the degree of Master of Wine, a rare designation awarded by the Institute of Masters of Wine in London. Since the Institute's inauguration in 1953, only 260 people worldwide have passed the exams necessary to be awarded the title. Pass rate for the examination process is about 12% over the past 5 decades. The Institute of Masters of Wine promotes excellence and achievement in the wine industry, culminating in an internationally recognized qualification of Master of Wine, or MW.

Candidates for the MW are required to pass the most rigorous testing in the wine industry which includes four days of written theory exams and three days of written blind tasting exams. A graduate thesis on a specific winemaking topic must also be completed. Bob's focus was on the interaction of wine and barrels during the maturation process. All segments deal with the analysis and assessment of wine in all its disciplines, from growing and making, through sensory analysis and selling.

The exams are designed to test the candidate's understanding of the international wine industry, as well as depth and breadth of wine knowledge, with an emphasis on analytical skills and clarity of presentation. Bob was given two additional awards in successfully completing the exams: the Villa Maria Award, for the highest scores on the viticultural exam, and the Robert Mondavi Award, for the highest overall scores in all theory exams.


Steven Tanzer, The International Wine Cellar, put Betz Family Wines in a short list of Washington Superstars.

“The superstars in my tastings this year (2003) which were conducted mostly in Washington, will come as no surprise to wine lovers who track this states wines, are: Andrew Will, Betz Family Winery, Cadence Winery, Cayuse Vineyards and Quilceda Creek Vintners.”

It is high praise indeed for such a short time as a small winery, and one that has Betz glowing with the pride of a newcomer, albeit nearly 30 years in the business. In addition, a recent book published in England, with a global analysis of the wine industry—The Wine Report 2004—named Betz Family Winery to first place in its list of “Up and Coming” wineries from the Northwest, and placed the winery second in its Cabernet Sauvignon Pere de Famille second to Quilceda Creek.

“I like the company we’re in,” Betz said.


Bob's "Artisan of the Year" article in
Wine & Spirits Magazine

 


Bob in Ciel du Cheval VIneyard
with owner Jim Holmes

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