100% Riesling

Food pairings: Shellfish and fresh seafood, roast poultry and white meats, fried foods, spicy dishes, and pungent cheeses.

Winemaking: Julian and Nadine Haart select their top barrels from two Rheinhessen Grosse Lage sites to make this dry Riesling, in effect declassified grand cru fruit bottled as a village-level wine. 2024 was a cooler vintage, and the wine shows strong minerality, high acidity, precision and elegance.

Vineyards and terroir: Beginning with the 2018 vintage, Julian Haart handed his tiny, ungrafted Piesporter Schubertslay parcel in the Mosel to Klaus Peter Keller, and in return Keller helped him source parcels in Rheinhessen: the Frauenberg, a marl and limestone site with red clay, and the Zellerweg am Schwarzen Herrgott, in a cool valley just south and west of Keller's home in Flörsheim-Dalsheim. Rote Erden means red earth, and the geology gives the wine more density and texture than Haart's Mosel Rieslings, with some richness from mature vines and limestone.

Family and history: Julian Haart, from Piesport in the Mosel, apprenticed with Egon Müller, Klaus Peter Keller and Werner Schönleber, and made his first vintage under his own label in 2010. His first vineyard was a small parcel in the grand cru Ohligsberg, and in 2011 he added parcels in Piesport's Goldtröpfchen and Schubertslay. He runs the estate with his wife Nadine.