2019 Pere de Famille Cabernet Sauvignon
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Tasting notes
Bright, primary and dark red fruited with a dusty core, the 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Père de Famille offers sweet oak essence with a floral lift that floats from the glass. Medium to full-bodied, the wine offers gobs of fruit with fantastic balance and a refined focus with a quality-driven, rich and food-friendly essence before gliding to an elegant and graceful finish. The beautiful thing about this wine is that you can drink it young, but your patience will be rewarded with a decade or more of cellar aging. Stunning!
Critic scores
Average Score
Jeb Dunnuck
Jeb Dunnuck
More reviews and scores
The 2019 Père de Famille keeps me coming back to the glass. It's dramatic bouquet mixes sweet violets contrasted by peppery florals, crushed wild blueberries and mocha nuances. While youthful coy, the 2019 still impresses with vivid ripe strawberry and baking spices that coat the palate, underscored by saline mineral tones. Regal tannins linger on as black raspberry notes slowly fade. There's so much concentration with structure and a balanced core of acidity that pulls it all together. It's a classic in the making.
The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Pere De Famille is another brilliant 2019 from this team. More blue fruits, flowers, violets, chocolate, and graphite notes all define the nose, and it's medium to full-bodied, with ultra-fine tannins, a terrific sense of finesse and elegant, and a great finish. This balanced, concentrated, incredibly impressive Cabernet Sauvignon will benefit from 2-4 years of bottle age and drink brilliantly over the following 15-20 years.
Based on 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Petit Verdot, and 10% Merlot, the 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Père De Famille looks to be a stunning wine, offering lots of blue and black fruits, violets, candied orange, and sandalwood-like aromas and flavors. Playing in the medium to full-bodied end of the spectrum, it's beautifully balanced and has a silky, elegant texture, ripe tannins, and a great finish. Straight-up class, it will benefit from 4-5 years of bottle age and have 2-3 decades of longevity. The style at Betz has changed subtly over the past handful of years, with winemaker Louis Skinner imparting his own style. The wines today are slightly less concentrated, and the deep, inky purple color preferred by the previous winemaker, Bob Betz, has been replaced with a more vivid ruby/purple hue that’s not always opaque. I love the overall balance of the wines today and I think taken as a whole, the new style emphasizes elegance and age-worthiness over sheer richness and power. Most of these 2018s should be given at least a few years in the cellar and will have broad drink windows. Louis is one of the most intelligent and inquisitive winemakers out there and he’s doing a fabulous job with these wines.