2014 Riesling trocken

It is hard to overstate the importance of longtime VDP-Mosel chairman Wilhelm Haag as a political force in the wine world, let alone as a grower (since 1957) of exemplary, inspiring and influential Riesling. His younger son Oliver therefore stepped into some very big shoes when he left the directorship of Weingut Wegeler (a position offered to him while he was still in his mid-twenties) and returned in 2005 to assume primary responsibility at his family’s estate. (Oliver’s older brother Thomas is proprietor-winemaker of Schloss Lieser.) It doesn’t just take a lot of talent to measure up to Wilhelm Haag; it also takes considerable selflessness and long-term vision to perpetuate, albeit with refinements, an inherited stylistic model that encompasses dry, off-dry, residually sweet and nobly sweet Riesling that defines not only consumers’ expectations under the Fritz Haag label but to a considerable extent also the wine world’s late-20th century expectations of Mosel Riesling. Thankfully, Oliver Haag displays the requisite talent and character traits, and the years of collaboration with his father have resulted in Rieslings that continue to exemplify a remarkable marriage of richness with elegance and finesse. He is contemplating at least one major change, though – even if it could also be characterized as a throwback to his dad’s early decades – namely, to begin giving certain wines longer than one year’s élevage, and perhaps even letting some of them spend a second winter in cask.

This estate has steadily expanded its acreage in the prime sections of Brauneberger Juffer and Juffer-Sonnenuhr and continues to focus its efforts on those two great sites. Extensive family holdings in Veldenz and Burgen remain the mainstay of the estate’s exemplary generic bottlings. In nearly every vintage of the past quarter-century, the Fritz Haag estate has rendered a multiplicity of Spätlesen, Auslesen and “gold capsule” Auslesen over and beyond merely an auction- and a non-auction version, and things have been arranged so that the same registration (A.P.) number characteristically applies each year to a wine harvested with the same stylistic goals, and usually from the same parcel or parcels. But 2014 is a bit different in that respect, as there are fewer total bottlings, and picking for any given Auslese tended to range across a wider array of parcels.

For all of the talent and ambition at work chez Haag, it was, unsurprisingly, impossible to entirely counteract the ill effects of rain, rot and insect pests of which Brauneberg experienced even more than most other sectors of the Greater Mosel. Oliver Haag emphasized a bright lining to the dark clouds that hung over his 2014 harvest: “Given the paucity of 2013, I badly needed a good crop of Kabinett and Spätlese and also to replenish my stocks of generics, which 2014 certainly offered me the opportunity to do,” given not just fairly high yields even after culling inferior bunches, but also considering the volume of fruit from the two Brauneberg crus that demanded declassification into the collection’s generics. “We did a relatively substantial preharvest beginning in October,” related Haag, “and began the main harvest October 8th or 10th. You really had to check out each bunch very carefully, intensive work that had to be repeated day after day, all the while trying to make steady progress, because conditions weren’t getting any better.” The nobly sweet wines demanded additional triage in the cellar. Although as usual, high-must Auslese and auction bottlings are predominantly from the Juffer-Sonnenuhr, with regard to this collection as a whole, the slightly slower-ripening tendencies and less exotic fruit of the Juffer clearly held a qualitative edge.