2016 Riesling Piesporter Goldtropfchen Auslese

Johannes Haart estimated his overall losses to the April 2017 frost at around a third, including a drastic reduction in the Ohligsberg and Grafenberg vineyards and a major impact across the Goldtröpfchen, a sector in which, according to his father Theo, the last time buds were hit by frost was in 1971. Harvest commenced on September 23 – earlier than any in this estate’s lengthy annals – but despite the low yields lasted for four weeks. There was no hurry, averred Haart, once troublesome botrytis had been “negatively selected” and left on the ground. The small crop led to a corresponding reduction in the number of individual bottlings essayed from 2017. There is not even a legally dry Gutsriesling, let alone a legally dry village-designated bottling; no generic Kabinett; just one wine, a Grosses Gewächs, from the Ohligsberg; and no Grafenberg Grosses Gewächs, due to the extreme losses to frost in that site (although Haart did bottle for a private client the 500 liters of dry Grafenberg that there was). Haart’s vintage 2016 Kreuzwingert Grosses Gewächs, incidentally, was finally bottled in late summer 2018, alongside the 2017 Goldtröpfchen. But he wanted to hold the wine for another year in bottle before presenting it. (There will be a 2017 Kreuzwingert – it was in fact still fermenting as the 2018 harvest got underway – but due to the tiny crop, no 2018. Not yet tasted is another wine that was still fermenting in late 2018: a 2017 Beerenauslese that Haart said will probably get sold via the estate’s price list rather than auctioned. For some additional background on this estate – whose official name was formerly “Reinhold Haart” – consult the introductions to my coverage of their 2014s, 2015s and 2016s; and for some details on the sites they farm, consult selected tasting notes that accompany those reports.)

Johannes Haart reports not having begun serious picking in 2016 until the third week of October, but like so many of his fellow growers, he reports that it was a relaxed affair, and he didn’t finish until November 5. Peronospora was only a problem in a few parcels whose consequent low yields helped Haart produce a small amount of Auslese in a vintage where his vines experienced “very little” botrytis. Haart’s 2016 collection illustrates his emphasis on adamantly dry, phenolically gripping, unabashedly austere Riesling of the sort that his wine-growing and journalistic countrymen like to refer to as “serious,” “consequential” or “puristic,” but which – as you can tell already from the context of this sentence – do not entirely persuade me, convinced as I am that “minerality” ideally encompasses saliva-inducement; that delicacy and transparency are cardinal Mosel virtues; that low residual sugar and high acidity are compatible with charm; and that Riesling ought not to forget its duty to refresh. (Certainly these dry wines are strikingly unlike their author, for whom “generous,” “amicable” and “charming” only begin to do justice.) Perhaps as these formidably concentrated Grosse Gewächse mature, they will appeal to me on a more sensual level. Admittedly, I tasted three of the four latest Haart Grosse Gewächse the day after bottling, but that’s a moment at which many professionals – at most half tongue-in-cheek – refer to wines as “not yet bottle-sick,” and so it seemed to me on the occasion in question. Another factor of increasing significance in recent dry Haart offerings and which strikes me as occasionally problematic is new or new-ish, still tasteable oak. But for an estate of moderate size (22 acres, to be exact) and committed 100% to Riesling, it’s understandable that there aren’t any places to “condition” young barrels where their organoleptic influence won’t show.

Thankfully, overtly sweet but impeccably balanced Rieslings of the sort that brought Theo Haart well-deserved fame continue to be a major part of the offerings from this father-and-son team, and while acid levels in 2016 hover around eight grams – one gram less than in 2015 – that acidity is highly efficacious, enhancing the inherently citric tendencies of Piesport Riesling and generating delightful synergy with the wines’ residual sugar. Thankfully, too, there remains at least one wine above the generic level whose residual sugar falls somewhere between low-end Trockenheit and unabashed sweetness. In keeping with the Haarts’ decision to hold back for late release their small volume of Riesling from the Kreuzwingert (which since 2011 has been earmarked as Grosses Gewächs), they elected with the 2016 to delay bottling as well, so as of my late July 2017 tasting visit, the date for that had not been determined and the wine was on display. (For additional background on this estate – whose official name was formerly “Reinhold Haart” – consult the introductions to my coverage of their 2014s and 2015s; for some details on the sites they farm, consult selected tasting notes that accompany those reports.)