2017 Riesling Piesporter Goldtröpfchen Kabinett

Julian Haart is used to – and indeed celebrates the virtues of – low yields. But not like those of 2017, when he lost nearly half of what he had hoped to harvest to frost and suffered additional penury due to the requisite selectivity. “The harvest was really laborious,” he reported. “Especially for Auslese, you had to smell each cluster [for nests of negative rot] and usually break them open.” His last harvest from the Schubertslay vineyard, for which Klaus Peter Keller assumed responsibility with vintage 2018 was an extreme case, netting in aggregate the equivalent of 4 to 5 hectoliters per hectare! “We had so much botrytis in that site,” related Haart, “that a dry wine would have been impossible.” It’s remarkable that he managed to bottle a Kabinett. But those who have followed this young grower’s brief career will not be surprised to learn that what little wine Haart rendered is of high quality. It’s also spread across many, mostly minuscule bottlings. There are seven Auslesen alone, each representing just 30–50 liters. Why so many? Partly, explained Haart, because the nature of the raw materials was so diverse, but also because with his pair of "three-star" Auslesen from this vintage-for-the-record-books, he wished to commemorate the birth of a second child as well as to put away a few bottles that his daughter and son could enjoy in their old age, proud of what mom and dad had accomplished. “I don’t plan on another vintage having seven Auslesen,” he quipped, “or at least, not voluntarily!” Apropos of those stars on the labels, Haart says he awards them for sheer quality, not on the basis of must weight or botrytis. The two three-star Auslesen in fact represent the same grapes as do the corresponding one-star Auslesen. The former issued from the juice that ran from the press largely under the pressure of its own weight, the latter from what flowed after a few literal turns of the screw.

Picking began on September 25, 2017, and although Haart noted that haste was needed to achieve a full range of eventual wines – especially in Goldtröpfchen – he didn’t finish harvesting until October 25, since his one stand of ancient vines in the Ohligsberg demonstrated its usual proclivity for late ripening at shockingly low must weight. Haart points out a dilemma involved in rendering outstanding dry wine from 2017: Even when growers believed they had done their best to ensure entirely healthy fruit, the brush with botrytis could easily tempt them toward extreme must clarification and cool fermentation, a combination conducive to stuck fermentations from yeasts thereby deprived of nutrients and inhibited by chill. To assure dryness in his desired instances (which are never labeled “trocken,” and in aggregate make up around half of this vintage’s volume), Haart went to barrel or tank with plenty of dispersed solids in his must, and slightly warmed the relevant vessels in the course of their fermentative labors. He got Trockenheit with a vengeance: in one instance, down to a single gram of residual sugar. That didn’t seem to concern him; indeed, my inkling is that he shares the increasing tendency among young German growers to celebrate low residual sugar as a sign of seriousness and “purism.” Even at such low levels of residual sugar, though, Haart’s dry 2017s managed barely to rise above 13% alcohol, though he didn’t disagree with me that less would have been better. This is a grower who makes a concerted effort to brake the accumulation of sugar in grapes – especially those from the notoriously warm, sun-drenched Goldtröpfchen – by grooming his vines to both divert energy from and partly shade their fruit. These fuller-bodied dry bottlings of 2017 lack quite the finesse displayed by the very finest of Haart’s efforts from 2014 through 2016. In the realm of residual sweetness, though, Haart’s 2017s represent an unalloyed triumph.

Haart continues to locate and purchase well-cared-for old Mosel fuders, so that use of stainless steel in dry wines will soon be confined to his Gutsriesling (where casks will play a supporting role). For residually sweet Prädikat wines, Haart continues to favor stainless steel, although the question is moot in 2017, since in only one instance was classic Mosel fuder even an option. “I had enough Goldtröpfchen Kabinett that I could have raised it in fuder,” explained Haart, “but I tried that once and I found that the results didn’t epitomize my idea of Kabinett.” (For extensive further information on Julian Haart and his decade-old estate, consult the introductions to my reports on his 2014s, 2015s and 2016s.)