Betz Family will not release 2020 vintage Washington, Oregon wines

[ibglowin]

Perhaps the first of many West Coast wineries pulling the plug due to smoke taint.

https://www.wawinereport.com/2021/06/betz-family-will-not-release-2020.html

 

[jswordy]

That left me with one question: What did they do with the wine?

 

[franc1969]

Yeah, my question as well. If you are working on that scale, do they sell to a distiller or have this made into a winery brandy by some company with licensing? Do the smoke taint chemicals transfer to a distilled product? Seems a huge waste to dump something they could recover something from, and awful for wherever the liquid waste would go.
I saw that French wineries were selling their ready to sell wines to industrial distillers last year. Couldn't sell wines in pandemic and bumper crop on the way. The issue there was just emptying tanks, not removing chemicals, though.

 

[ibglowin]

Betz is one of the oldest Top Tier wineries in WA State so their bar is needless to say very high and if the wine didn't meet their expectations there is no law that says they can't sell the wine as bulk to someone whose bar is _________________

 

[jswordy]

Betz is one of the oldest Top Tier wineries in WA State so their bar is needless to say very high and if the wine didn't meet their expectations there is no law that says they can't sell the wine as bulk to someone whose bar is _________________

That's what I figured happened. Sell it to someone who will blend it for volume. It still would have been nice for the article to answer that question.