Prefer the old site?Launch →

Lothar Kettern

The past quarter-century has witnessed no shortage of avowed intentions to restore Mosel Riesling to its late 19th and early 20th century reputation by reviving then-prevalent methods and styles. But Philipp Kettern stands out for the earnestness with which he both expresses and pursues those goals as well as for the extent to which they are leavened by an experimental spirit, as conspicuously exhibited in his extensive collaborative project with Dirk and (son) Daniel Niepoort dubbed “Fio” (described in detail under that heading in the present report). Young Kettern took the reins of his family’s estate – with its significant share of steep Piesport slopes – in 2010, and a year later his collaboration with Niepoort commenced. That association, along with the quality of Kettern’s estate-bottled releases from three challenging seasons, 2012–2014, earned him considerable attention, so that I am really remiss in only now having personally made his acquaintance and assessed a full range of his wines.

When we met, on the eve of harvest, Kettern had only just put the majority of his vintage 2018 Rieslings into bottle, but he was confident that they would show well. “I’d like to leave them in cask for even longer,” he said, “but right now, I need the space in my cellar.” Selected batches of mostly dry wine that are given extended time in cask get released under the Fio label, partly in an attempt to avoid confusion of stylistically diverse wines that in some cases have identical names – e.g., “Piesporter Goldtröpfchen Riesling trocken.” (Reviews of numerous such wines can be found in my coverage of Fio in the present report.) The small volume of vintage 2018 Auslese (which I haven’t tasted) was set to enjoy slightly longer élevage than the corresponding Spätlese and not be bottled until after the 2019 harvest, and Kettern revealed that he has Beerenauslese and TBA from most of his vintages thus far (unsurprisingly including 2018), but has taken his time bottling them and not yet released any. I supplemented my first set of Kettern tasting notes by sampling a couple of additional wines available in the US market.

Apropos of cask, most of the production here takes place in wood (with a goal of 100%), but not just in traditional thousand-liter Mosel fuders. “We began seriously supplementing our stock of casks in 2011,” related Kettern, “but then the local barrel-maker on whom we had relied gave up his practice. So we put out an all-points bulletin seeking well-cared-for casks, and among other things we were able to purchase 2,000-liter casks that are really terrific. We have some 500s as well.” Barrels are not the only or even the most important thing that Kettern began acquiring in 2011 to supplement his inheritance. “It was exactly the same with steep slopes as with barrels,” he claimed. “Nobody wanted them, and I was able to exchange flat surfaces for steep ones in Goldtröpfchen one-to-one. We turned things on their heads in 2011,” he said by way of summarizing his expansion into steep slopes, his reversion to labor-intensive methods, his stylistic impositions, the shutting down of the family’s wine tavern with its direct-to-consumer sales, and the need that all of those measures brought to price the wines accordingly. “Overnight, we lost all of our customers. My parents were concerned, sure,” recalled Kettern, “but if you have an idea, you have to believe in it and work hard on it. They had given me a free hand, and they never said ‘no’.” Kettern now farms nearly two dozen acres in Falkenberg, Goldtröpfchen and adjacent Gunterslay. Beyond that, he’s putting stock for the future in the potential of cool high-elevation and side-valley sites, “places where even in a hot year like 2018 we will be able to produce dry wines of just 10.5 or 11 alcohol.” (This was also the motivation for Kettern and Niepoort’s investment in the obscure Leiwener Josefsberg, for more on which consult the introduction to my report on Fio as well as the attendant review of “Riesling Socalos.”) But to achieve alcoholic levity in most of the classic steep Piesport sites necessitated an early start to the 2018 harvest – on September 12, to be exact. “By the time we finished,” three weeks later, Kettern claimed that – in his vines, anyway – “acidity was seriously dropping and must weights climbing.”

From Generosity and Diversity - Mosel 2018: Graach to Grünhaus (Nov 2020) by David Schildknecht

Reviews

Wines

Sort by default

2018 Riesling trocken

Release Price: $25

Color: White

Subscriber Access Only

or Sign Up

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer vitae aliquam odio. Aliquam purus diam, tempor et consectetur vitae, eleifend ac quam. Proin nec mauris ac odio iaculis semper. Integer posuere pharetra aliquet. Nullam tincidunt sagittis est in maximus. Donec sem orci, vulputate ac quam non, consectetur fermentum diam. In dignissim magna id orci dignissim convallis. Integer sit amet placerat dui. Aliquam pharetra ornare nulla at vulputate. Sed dictum, mi eget fringilla lacinia, nisl tortor condimentum mi, vitae ultrices quam diam ac neque. Donec hendrerit vulputate felis, fringilla varius massa.