2015 Betz Family Syrah La Côte Rousse
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Tasting notes
As usual, the 2015 Syrah La Cote Rousse offers a more masculine, structured, mineral-driven style. This cuvée comes all from the warmer Red Mountain AVA and is a power-packed 2015 loaded with notions of black, black fruits, scorched earth, graphite, and charred meats. It’s a big, rich, inky effort, yet like all the wines from this estate has awesome purity of fruit and is impeccably balanced. Owned by the Griessel family since 2011, Betz Family Winery still has Washington State’s incredible ambassador of Bob Betz firmly involved in the winery, with the wines made by the talented Louis Skinner since 2013. This is an undeniable reference point estate for the Washington State and the wines go from strength to strength. Today, they are at the top of the hierarchy in just about every vintage. In addition, while it would be easy to sit back and maintain the status quo at an established estate like this, they continue to push for improvements in quality at every level, purchasing an optical sorting machine in 2015, creating a second wine, doing an even more strict selection for their top cuvées, and experimenting with stems in the ferments as well as with different sizes (and types) of vessels in their vinification and aging regimes. This is a terrific, world-class estate that readers need to try, and both the 2014s and 2015s are incredible wines.
Critic scores
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
Jeb Dunnuck
More reviews and scores
Full ruby-red. Deep, smoky aromas of dark raspberry, animal fur, roasted meat, chocolate and violet. More intense than the Serenne, stuffed with black fruit flavors complicated by musky earthy and saline components. A bit reduced and less about fruit than the Serenne but with no lack of sweetness--and a step up in concentration. Finishes with suave, fine-grained tannins and excellent length. Phenolic management was the most important aspect of making this wine, according to Bob Betz, who noted that the Kiona Ranch portion of this Syrah was harvested on August 26 in this very hot year. Held up very well in the recorked bottle, showing a more exotic, slightly port-like quality to its fruit while maintaining serious tannic clout without dryness.
The 2015 Syrah la Cote Rousse is a blockbuster Syrah from Red Mountain that’s from the Ranch at the End of The Road and Ciel du Cheval vineyards. It’s a mix of four different clones and is brought up in barrel. This deep, inky, seriously black Syrah gives up Hermitage-like notes of scorched earth, charred meats, graphite and licorice. It’s a big, concentrated effort that’s going to benefit from short-term cellaring and keep through 2035.