Weingut Julian Haart

Youth against tradition

The winegrower's family has been rooted in the village of Piesport on the Mosel for more than 700 years. A document from the year 1337 documents the vineyard property of the Haart's in Piesport for the first time. Contrary to all traditions, the young Julian Haart did not want to become a winegrower but a cook. So he moved out, out of the sea of vines around Piesport, out into the world to learn the craft of a cook.

Will and ambition

The sudden decision to give up his career as a chef happened from one day to the next. Julian Haart went back to his origins and to what has linked the Haart family for generations, the viticulture in Piesport. He learned the winemaking trade from scratch and enjoyed intensive training at some of Germany's most renowned wineries. It is the stars of the German wine scene, such as the Heymann-Löwenstein winery (Mosel), the Emrich Schönleber winery (Nahe), the Klaus-Peter Keller winery (Rheinhessen) and the world-famous Egon Müller winery on the Saar, that planted the passion of Riesling in his heart and made it blossom.

The Julian Haart Winery

In 2010, Julian Haart returned to his hometown of Piesport on the Mosel and founded his own small winery by purchasing one of the best vineyard parcels in the Wintrich Ohligsberg. The Julian Haart Winery. From the beginning, everything was focused exclusively on his passion, Riesling. A year later, Julian Haart expanded his estate to include one of Piesport's highest quality vineyards, the Schubertslay monopollage. The Schubertslay is a unique terraced vineyard with single-root vines in the heart of the Piesport Goldtröpfchen. On the Schubertslay, which is only 0.5 hectares in size, Riesling wines grow with beguiling exotic fruit aromas and an impressive slate minerality. With the takeover of the Joh. Haart vineyard, which belonged to his uncle Gerd Haart, he gained precious parcels in Piesporter Goldtröpfchen and Piesporter Domherr and expanded his valuable vineyard holdings by another proud 2.5 hectares.

Old vines and intensive manual labour

Julian Haart's vineyard holdings today cover just under 5 hectares of vines, with the Riesling vines having an average age of 50-60 years. However, the Piesporter Schubertslay and the Wintrich Ohligsberg still have rooted vines planted in 1915 and 1918 and produce the most elegant and fine wines. All of Julian Haart's Riesling vines are planted in steep or steepest sites in the villages of Piesport and Wintrich. The majority of the Riesling vines are grown in the traditional single-pole method, i.e. the vines are tied individually and free-standing to a vertical support pole and the growing shoots are tied to the support pole in a funnel shape. This method of rearing the vines does not allow for mechanisation of the various operations. All vineyard work must be done exclusively by hand. Since no machines can be used for the work, the amount of work in the steep vineyards is enormous.

Greatest elegance and finesse

For his dry wines, Julian Haart relies on the typical soil character of his vineyard sites. In the Piesporter Gemarktungen, for example, the terroir of the weathered slate is brought to the fore, and in the Wintrich vineyards the dark blue slate with its high quartzite content is tangibly brought out. In the fruit-sweet wines, the focus is mainly on the Kabinett wines. The Kabinett style of Julian Haart is characterised by a terrific acidity with a lot of mineral and an only delicately perceptible sweetness. But the name Julian Haart also stands for expressive late harvests of Riesling with an almost creamy character and an infinite depth and complexity. The noble sweet Riesling wines are fermented very cool and slowly, their expression is characterised by an incredible elegance and finesse. This is what traditional viticulture on the Mosel stands for and, of course, Julian Haart, who is opening a new chapter in the Mosel valley with his sweet Riesling wines.