Size & Type
Other
$106
Very fine floral-honey, dried-fig and sultana character from botrytis. Concentrated and creamy with extravagant dried-fruit flavors and a very long, vivid and intense finish. Very limited production.
Stuart Piggot, Suckling
Out of stock
The terrifyingly steep Brauneberg hillside has been revered as a top vineyard site since Roman times (it was the Romans who first cultivated wine grapes in the Mosel valley). For centuries, Brauneberg wines were the most celebrated of all Mosel Rieslings. The Brauneberger Juffer Kabinett is a selection of early-picked fruit and has a very fine, delicate structure. Its pure, energizing fruitiness exemplifies the Fritz Haag style.
This Grosse Lage (grand cru) site produces profound, distinctive wines with great purity and concentration. Auslese is a special selection of late-picked, very ripe clusters with about 50 percent botrytisaffected grapes. It is a rich, fullbodied style of Riesling, with a lively interplay between fruity sweetness and vibrant acidity. It makes a deliciously refreshing, palate-cleansing “sorbet” between courses, or a brilliant accompaniment to fresh fruit dessert dishes.
The Juffer Sonnenuhr (“Sundial”) vineyard is the choicest center cut of the Brauneberg — the steepest and most south-facing part of the hillside. This Grosse Lage (grand cru) site produces profound, distinctive wines with great purity and concentration. The Juffer Sonnenuhr GG is produced 60% in Fuder casks and spends more time on the fine lees than the Juffer GG. It is a full-textured wine with fine fruit aromas and delicate juiciness that lingers on the palate.
The historic Fritz Haag wine estate is located in the heart of the central Mosel River Valley. The earliest documentation of the estate dates back to 1605. At that time, the village in which it is situated was known as “Dusemond.” In 1925, this village was renamed “Brauneberg” (“brown mountain,” a reference to the color of the slate soil in this area of the Mosel) in an endeavour to further promote the reputation of its world-renowned vineyards “Brauneberger Juffer” and “Brauneberger Juffer Sonnenuhr.”
The name “Juffer,” which translates as “old maid” in the local dialect, goes back to 1790. The proprietor of these exceptional vineyards at the time, the aristocratic Kurpfälzische Kammerherr Wunderlich, had three daughters who all remained unmarried and lived the lives of spinsters. As a consequence, when they took over the vineyard management from their father, the name “Brauneberger Juffer” was born and the wines soon became famed throughout the wine world. The vineyards are recognised as true pearls of the Mosel region and were treasured even by Napoleon.
For many years, the Fritz Haag wine estate was successfully headed by the endlessly energetic Wilhelm Haag, and achieved under his guidance a world-renowned reputation. Wilhelm Haag was the first to be named Gault Millau’s “Winemaker of the Year,” a highly coveted accolade introduced in 1994. Since 2005, his son Oliver has taken over the reins and has followed his legendary father in leading the estate into the future.
The Fritz Haag estate owns 17.5 ha (43 acres) of vineyards which are all exclusively planted with Riesling. The excellent micro-climate and the deep slate soils of the Brauneberg hillside yield some of the most intensely flavored and elegantly-structured Riesling wines of the Mosel region. Oliver Haag rigorously selects the clones most suited to the microclimate of his vineyards in order to achieve the maximum potential in the grapes.
Looking at the early reviews across a range of top producers Brauneberger Juffer is looking to have proved itself successful in 2020.
A warm winter was followed by one of the warmest springs ever with, fortunately, much more limited impact of frosts than elsewhere in Europe. In parallel, the Covid-19 pandemic led to a lockdown and created much trouble to work the vineyards and harvest the grapes in 2020.
The start of the summer was marked by an uneven flowering. The remainder of the summer was almost a remake of 2019: hot and dry. As a result, vegetation did progress fast and the ripening process was already well advanced by early September.
As anticipated by most, harvest start proved, yet again, a record early affair under sunny conditions. But then the parallels with 2019 stopped as the weather turned cooler and cloudier. These cooler and cloudier weather conditions kept the sugar levels at comparatively moderate levels for weeks on end. Little botrytis developed which limited the potential for noble-sweet wines. Also, the winter only yielded a patch of frost at the beginning of 2021, too late for most in order to produce some Eiswein.
The 2020 vintage is about the fascinating balance of ripe flavors but delivered with a lightness rarely seen in recent years. The fruity-styled wines do reflect their Prädikat and the best are on par with some of the great wines from the 1990s. The few noble-sweet wines made in 2020 mostly come from clean but overripe rather than fully botrytized fruit and can show elegance. The dry and off-dry wines are refreshingly light in alcohol (and lower than in recent vintages) and can be quite elegantly intense and balanced. There are successful wines in all regions but, on the whole, the Middle Mosel may have the edge over its sister regions in 2020. Yields were refreshingly good, much to the satisfaction and relief of growers.
2020 is all about filigreed ripeness with some stunning wines with a lightness and finesse not seen in a decade. However, the vintage is also quite heterogeneous and buying blind is, once again, not an option. The sweet spot of the vintage is Spätlese which can be as light as a feather and hugely deeply flavored. Kabinett wines can also be absolutely stunning, some of the finest in decades, but, as a category, are not as homogeneous. Noble-sweet wines are rare but the finest are worth every effort to unearth them. Lovers of not overly heady dry and off-dry Riesling will find much to love in the 2020 offers. Overall, 2020 is a vintage to tank on if elegance, finesse, and playfulness is your thing: There are true gems available!
Fritz Haag is in the middle-Mosel with the majority of his production coming from Braunenberg.
The German VDP has an excellent interactive map covering the wine growing regions of Germany. Clink on the Map to go to the live version.
Very fine floral-honey, dried-fig and sultana character from botrytis. Concentrated and creamy with extravagant dried-fruit flavors and a very long, vivid and intense finish. Very limited production.
Where in the world does the magic happen?
Weingut Fritz Haag, Dusemonder Straße, Brauneberg, Germany
Riesling | Siefersheim, Germany
Timorasso | Colli Tortonesi, Italy
Riesling | Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, Germany
Chardonnay | Meursault, Burgundy
You must be logged in to post a comment.