TN: 2015 Julian Haart - (Piersporter) Schubertslay Kabinett

If this is typical of the '15s, we have some fun in store. Served courtesy of Jay Miller.

I wasn’t scribbling lots of notes, but this was excellent from the get-go and only got better over several hours open. I’d describe it being like a good new razor blade – sharp yet flows smoothly. A great backbone of acidity but with great fruit concentration offsetting the acidity. This is at least 92+±ish for me. Really about as good as Middle Mosel Kabinetts get, and that’s saying something.

Jay said that Chambers Street allocated these two bottles to a customer.

I liked this a lot, my second bottle will go into storage for at least a decade.

Excellent note! I just passed on some pricey Egon Muller, starting to rethink it . . . .

I saw that Mr. Big bought some.

Them thar’s fightin’ words.

You’re the Baller! Too rich for my little country lawyer life!

I cut down on wine buying all year in preparation for the 2015 Germans. The real problem is that now that I’ve opened the checkbook whenever I buy some Germans I always seem to pick up something else alongside them.

Totally agree about this wine. For me, this was one of the standouts against the background of a fantastic array of wines at the Howard Ripley tasting in London a few months ago. It definitely has the ‘x-factor’. I’m looking forward to trying his dry wines soon too. I don’t know them, but I’ve heard KP Keller opine that they’re the best on the Mosel.

Didn’t realize this bottling was so allocated stateside. Feel less complacent about my six bottles hearing that.

IIRC they said the US got 4 cases each of the Kab and the Spat.

Waiting patiently for my offer… If patiently means calling every day and saying don’t forget me!!

I am sure you know that Julian worked for KP and Egon Muller. One of the reasons they are allocated, in addition to the small quantities produced, is that Howard Ripley buys so much! It think they took the entire allocation of the Schubertslay Spatlese one year.

The wines are amazing, I would however put AJ Adam and Weiser-Kunstler right up there with Julian amongst the young winemakers in that area.

I managed to find 6 bottles of this - not sure how many more than this will make it to Australia.
Really excited to try it.
The 2015s are just now starting to trickle into Australia.

Has anyone tried Haart’s 2015 auslese wines?
Thanks

I love German wines very much including wines from the Saar and the Ruwer. But, I will not pay the prices for Egon Muller. I am perfectly happy drinking wines from more reasonably priced producers like Zilliken and von Schubert to get my fix from these regions.

Julian Haart, who is close friends with Klaus Peter Keller, also worked at Emrich-Schönleber and Heymann-Löwenstein, where he met Andreas Adam. As some of you know, they produce under the Adam & Haart label a couple of wines from Piesport.

In Germany, KP Keller sells a lot of his wines through Pinard de Picard, which also carries selections from the Big Four in the Nahe—Dönnhoff, Emrich-Schönleber, Schäfer-Fröhlich, and Diel—and Julian Haart. This is probably why so little of the latter is available in the States.

I’ve yet to taste the 2015s from Julian Haart, but the reviews have been positive. As for “the best” dry wines on the Mosel, it’s a question of personal taste and style. There are a number of producers that have a long track record for making high-quality dry Mosel wines. Markus Molitor is one of the biggest names in this category.

I agree with Robert that A.J. Adam and Weiser-Künstler are two of the top producers on the Mosel, also for dry wines. Other first-rate producers of denser dry or dryish Mosels include Clemens Busch, Heymann-Löwenstein, Knebel, Immich-Batterieberg, Peter Lauer, Van Volxem, Schloss Lieser, and Günther Steinmetz, among others. I’ve also heard that Zilliken’s 2015 Rausch GG is very good.

But I wouldn’t start in the Mosel if I were looking for drier than Kabinett wines.

Do you mean “drier than [residually sweet] Kabinett wines”? If so, that means nothing less than 30-plus grams of residual sugar per liter. But the Mosel offers so much more, including truly light-bodied dry to off-dry wines, some of which are still designated as Kabinett.

Jon Bonné’s recent piece for Punch on off-dry German Riesling supports what David Schildknecht and I have been proselytizing for years now.

I know what the Mosel offers Lars.

Exactly what I said. I don’t believe the best expressions of dry Riesling in Germany come from the Mosel. So I wouldn’t start there were I looking for one.

I deleted my previous comment (“What do you mean then?”), because I wanted to include your quote, so readers can better follow along.

Okay, that’s your opinion. But you’re also saying that Mosel wines between 10 and 30 grams of residual sugar are of little interest, too. Most so-called classic Mosel Riesling Kabinett wines have 30-plus grams of sugar per liter; some are 60 grams.

I would