2014 Riesling trocken

For a long time, proprietor Theo Haart was almost the only grower properly showcasing the potential of the famous Goldtröpfchen (and also of the less familiar Domherr and Gräfenberg). He was best known for doing so with residually sweet Rieslings that endowed this site’s inherently colorful fruit with delicacy, refinement, energy and mineral complexity. But Haart, like many other Mosel growers, showed increasing interest in dry wines as the previous century drew to a close; and with son Johannes having come aboard in the new millennium, that interest has become keener. The younger Haart seems entirely convinced by the Grosses Gewächs model and prefers to see to it that his top dry-tasting wines are also legally trocken, although in my experience this occasionally comes at the price of some heat or exaggeration of piquant elements thanks to enhanced alcohol. For most of Theo Haart’s tenure at the helm, stainless steel was almost the exclusive vinificatory vessel, but a bit of wood has lately been reintroduced to the cellar. In the early 1990s, Haart began championing the once-famous Wintricher Ohligsberg, and more recently his acquisition and revival of the tiny Piesporter Kreuzwingert has further broadened the range of distinctive terroirs and wines on display at this address. The Haarts did not attempt significant preharvest culling in 2014, instead largely making their pickers responsible for deciding what to leave behind in the vineyard and simultaneously harvesting the rest. The range of bottlings, as at many Mosel addresses, was abbreviated slightly in 2014 compared with a typical vintage.