Betz Family Winery

When is the best time to enjoy your wine? ... anytime

Drinkability recommendations are, at their best, a moving target. Individual preferences, storage conditions, food marriages, serving temperature and aeration/decanting time all affect how a wine is perceived as it ages. Your own palate should always be the final authority on when you serve any wine. While we craft our wines to develop with cellaring, they can be (and often are) enjoyed young, depending on one’s palate.

One of the greatest pleasures of making and consuming wine is seeing how it evolves in the glass, in the decanter, in the cellar and as it moves through its life in the bottle. It’s tempting to try to figure out when is “the perfect time” to drink a wine, more enjoyable is to simply open a bottle and taste it!

We suggest that whenever you decide to open a bottle, at any age, taste it first. If the wine seems “tight,” with some astringency on the pallet, you may wish to decant the wine to allow the aromas and flavors of natural fruit and oak to evolve with air contact, often making the wine feel smoother and more integrated.

As a general rule of thumb, if a wine is younger than 5 years from its vintage date you may wish to double-decant (pour it out of the bottle and right back in) and wait an hour or two before enjoying. If a wine is older than 5 years, you may wish to decant the wine or simply let the wine breathe in the bottle after opening and pouring a small amount. If the wine is 10+ years, you may not wish to decant at all as the bouquet can begin to diminish throughout the course of your meal.

Bottom line?

Taste first then decide!

Since its first vintange in 1997, Betz Family Winery has had a single-minded goal of crafting compelling wines with individual character that are approachable and age-worthy, and wich showcase Washington as a distinguished wine region of the world. By carving out specific vineyard blocks and being meticulous in the vineyard and cellar they are able to achieve the quality they aspire to, the result being highly-acclaimed wines that compete on the world stage.

At Betz Family Winery, we have a guiding philosophy; there is no substitute for quality. We live in a constant state of possibility and our best wines are always still to come. Each bottle is a celebration of our Washington wine community, we call home.

Great wines are made in the vineyard, not the winery.

We co-farm our own rows and blocks in the most famous vineyards in Washington and work with our growers every step of the way, making every vineyard decision together. In addition, we own two of our own vineyards in Walla Walla.

From year to year decisions are driven by both flavor and physical maturity, for geeks this is called phenolic ripeness. We are one of a handful of wineries that use optical sorting.

Small open-top fermenters allow us to see, taste and smell every lot, every day to ensure happy fermentations.  Gentle cap management enhances color, tannin, and mouthfeel.

Once the best barrels are selected we spend several months making each wine. We taste five blends at a time double-blind, using triple-digit random numbers to ensure no bias.

Each flight we select a top wine from the five and then construct another four blends around that for the next tasting.  This process continues for several months until we eventually choose the final wine.

This is the essence of what sets Betz Family apart and why we need to be a limited production winery.

From fermentation to barrel and finally to bottle our goal is to stay true to our ideologies.

Our sanitation process, the usability of our winery, attention to detail and sensory analysis are a few of the tools we incorporate into our daily routine. Strict winemaking, cellar and lab practices drive our goals of making the best wine we can.

The art and science of winemaking is a continuous learning adventure, again we look at the law of cause and effect. We make our decisions based on the science of the lab and the outcomes of what has proven effective. The true balance of winemaking is achieved when science and art collide creating a bottle of wine well worth drinking.

Perfect climate for growing grapes

The Sun

Great wine grapes need the sun to aid in the production of sugars (via photosynthesis), color development and heat accumulation for overall flavor and structure ripening. How much sun does Eastern Washington receive?

• While the growing season is slightly shorter from beginning to end than more southerly wine regions, the number of sun hours received in Eastern Washington is equal due to incredibly long days at our northern latitude – receiving up to 17 and a half hours of sun each day.
• There are NO clouds 300 days of the year.
• Long days and lack of clouds result in “high light intensity”, a must for great photosynthesis.
• The longer day length is similar to the great wine regions of Northern Europe, as they share similar latitudes.

Dry Growing Season

Eastern Washington is one of the most northern wine regions in the world. Similar areas elsewhere tend to be on the cusp of cool, rainy weather in the spring and fall, making viticulture difficult – especially at sensitive times like harvest. Eastern Washington is dry enough to be categorized as a Continental Semi-Desert. Why?

• The majestic north-south running Olympic and Cascade Mountain ranges in the Western portion of Washington combine to stop the clouds rolling in from the Pacific Ocean, creating a Rain Shadow Effect. Eastern Washington is the most northern latitude wine region to experience this phenomenon in the New World (read: not Europe).
• Only 7 to 12 inches of rain fall annually in Eastern Washington.
• Common vineyard fungal diseases such as oidium (powdery mildew), peronospera (downy mildew) and grey/black rot require a humid environment. Due to its arid climate, Eastern Washington is remarkably pest and disease free; as a result, very few chemical-based fungicides are required, leading to sustainable vineyard practices that leave vibrant, healthy, lively soils and water sources.

The Water

Eastern Washington has the good fortune of having incredible water sources to rely on for irrigation in such an arid region. This allows absolute control as to when the vine is given moisture and how much is given, which contributes to grape ripeness, lack of sugar dilution, canopy management and dehydration controls at vital moments during its growth.

• Mountain Rivers: The Columbia Basin benefits from snowmelt runoff. The massive Columbia River in Eastern Washington is the most obvious example, combining the Cascades, Rockies and Blue Mountains runoff to the 15th largest river in the United States at 1,214 miles in length.
• Underground aquifers run through levels of the basalt lava flow and can be tapped via wells for water reservoirs. World-class, technologically controlled/timed irrigation systems are utilized to influence the growth of many vineyards.
• Drip irrigation is most common, but some overhead spray irrigation also exists.

Daytime Air and Soil Temperature

Consistently warm daytime air and soil temperatures during the growing season are critical to producing the grape varieties that Washington State specializes in, helping with the physiological ripening – including skin color, skin and pulp texture, seed color and texture, tannins and other flavor compounds. Cold (though not freezing – see “Vital Issues” at the end of this section) during the winter months are ideal for vine dormancy, allowing the plant to rest and restore.

• Average daytime high vineyard air temperatures for June 1 to October 15: 78 degrees Fahrenheit. During the all-important August/September months, that average climbs slightly higher to 84 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Average daytime high temperatures for December 1 to March 1: 32 degrees Fahrenheit.
• In addition to allowing proper dormancy, these cold winter temperatures kill many vineyard disease-carrying pests such as phylloxera, moths, mites, and nematodes. This makes Washington vineyards remarkably pest-free. As a result, very few chemical-based pesticides are required, leading to sustainable vineyard practices that leave vibrant, healthy, lively soils and water sources