2022 Riesling trocken

Oliver Haag continues his trajectory of slender, slate-driven Rieslings of lovely nuance and elegance. “Two thousand twenty-three was a demanding year,” he says, “but ‘demanding’ also means interesting. The key in 2023 was selective hand-harvesting. Each and every bunch had to be inspected.” Haag notes that the rains in late August and September gave the wines “Saft und Kraft,” i.e., juice and vigor, but the warm temperatures also meant that rot was a constant scourge. Like many of his colleagues, he observes that it was hard for the pickers to tell good from bad botrytis. Haag hired ten more pickers than usual, as selection takes time, and time was of the essence. For a moment, he feared that the wines might become too alcoholic, having had both sunshine and water, but he need not have worried—the wines are as elegant, bright and slender as ever. His Spätlesen are a joy, and his Auslesen are a triumph.

Oliver Haag took over the 1605-founded family estate, Fritz Haag, in 2005 from his father, Wilhelm, who passed away in late 2020. Wilhelm Haag had been a key figure in the resurrection of Mosel wines from their 1980s doldrums. Haag was a staunch protagonist for quality viticulture that honored the historic single sites that the region had once been famed for. Haag senior was chairman of the Mosel VDP branch from 1984 to 2004 and thus oversaw the transformation of a region and the rehabilitation of site classification against many headwinds. Both his sons – Oliver Haag at home and Thomas Haag now at Schloss Lieser – followed in his footsteps and continue making wines at the highest level. Oliver trained with Dönnhoff in the Nahe and the Karthäuserhof in the Ruwer Valley, then graduated in viticulture and oenology from Geisenheim before running the Rheingau estates of Weingüter Wegeler. Today, he runs the 28.5-hectare estate with his wife Jessica Haag. The focus here is on the village of Brauneberg and its Grosse Lagen of Juffer and Juffer Sonnenuhr, alongside the Kestener Paulinshofberg and Monzeler Kätzchen; 97% of plantings are Riesling with just a little Pinot Blanc. The cellar is gravity-fed. Some wines receive skin contact. Dry and off-dry wines are spontaneously fermented in stainless steel and wood, meaning Fuder, tonneaux and Doppelsück. Sweeter wines are made mostly in stainless steel. The dry wines are lean, almost austere in their youth, and sometimes come across as liquid stone. The precision displayed gives clear lessons about the role of sweetness in the Mosel: when bone-dry, the wines are visions of slate, unbending, lithe yet profound. With a slight residue of sweetness, the same wine taps into treasures of fruit, still coming across as dry, with real sweetness, but never too much, a delicious pas-de-deux between fruit and slate is taken to its extreme. The 2022 harvest started on 18 September and concluded in mid-October, and Haag was able to harvest Prädikate up to Auslesen. During my visit, I tasted the full range of 2022 Rieslings. The auction wines appeared in the Pre-Auction Report.