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WILHELM HAAG, THE FIRST OF TWO WILHELMS being reviewed in this issue (see www.rieslingreport.com for information about the other one), is one of the most genuine human beings I have ever met. He is among the most celebrated winemakers in all the world - and rightly so - but deep down you can see that he is really just a farmer. Without a whit of pretension he lays aside his work gloves and welcomes you into his home to share with great gusto the fruits of his labor.

At most wine estates, the proprietor will daintily pour you a sip or two for thoughtful, reflective tasting. Not so at the Dusemonder Hof. Here Wilhelm verily upends the bottle into your glass for a rollicking round of unbridled conviviality. Definitely a work hard, play hard kind of guy. Still, it's not like guzzling cheap beer or Jack Daniels (sometimes both) with the Wild West farmers I grew up with in rural Oregon. In Brauneberg you are slurping down greedy mouthfuls of ultra-refined, full-flavored, refreshingly racy, low-alcohol Mosel Riesling.

Fritz Haag Rieslings are renowned for their sleek, muscular texture and their powerfully expressive fruit, all delivered in a nearly colorless liquid package of astonishing clarityg -lhelm Haag and his top-flight vineyards in Brauneberg are a wonderful example of cosmic synergy - both man and mountain are exuberant, robust and eternally youthful.

The Brown Mountain

About a hundred years ago, Brauneberg (BROW-neh-bearg) wines were considered the best on the Mosel. More recently tastes shifted to the delicate style of Wehlen. But now, thanks mostly to Wilhelm's hard work and tenacious quest for absolute perfection, the "brown mountain" is again among the unquestioned elite of Mosel vineyards.

The Brauneberg was formerly known as Dusemond, from the Latin for "sweet mountain" (dulcis mons), which tells us that even back in Roman times it was recognized as a good spot for growing ripe grapes. It is divided into two main vineyards. The largest, Juffer (YEW-fur), covers some 30 hectares (72 acres) and is considered the lesser of the two. Juffer-Sonnenuhr (11ha/26.5ac) is the choicest center cut of the south-west facing slope, from the river up to the sundial. Here the berg's heavier, drier (and thus warmer) soil bring exceptional ripeness to the grapes, even in wet years.

Like other Mosel Rieslings, these wines have a pronounced minerality. But it's not the delicate, filigreed mineral quality that you get from the blue slate in Wehlen, it's deeper and more rugged. Yet, for all their brawniness, the wines of Fritz Haag are magnificent in their definition, purity and sophistication.

The warmth of the site seems always to give the wines a very ripe acidity so that they are never hard or harsh. This quality is one of the main reasons that Fritz Haag wines can age almost indefinitely. Wilhelm likes nothing more than to startle you with a wine, tasted blind, that seems only a few years old, when really it is 15 or 20.

We experienced this amazing aging capacity again most recently in September, when we were lucky enough to get invited to a tasting Wilhelm and his son, Thomas (of Schloss Lieser), were hosting for a group of European customers. Take a look at Peter's tasting notes (www.rieslingreport.com) and you'll see how well these wines have developed. Of the 1975 Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr Auslese, Wilhelm said, "This is a wine to drink after 40 years." As you can imagine, neither Peter nor I were willing to abstain for another 15 years. These occasions are rare and we cherish them, all the while lamenting the fact that our forebears didn't have the resources to lay down an adequate cellar for us.

On the other hand, Wilhelm is also a winemaker who enjoys drinking the wines young. He heartily extols Rieslings virtues as a wine that gives you two windows of opportunity - the fresh, fruity charms of youth for the first year or two, then the long, slowly evolving onset of maturity. In the same way that a man develops detail and distinctiveness in his features as he ages, a great wine will become more characterful, more interesting, more "itself" as it matures.

The future of Fritz Haag

Wilhelm is tireless in his efforts to produce pure, expressive Rieslings from the Brauneberg, but his is not afraid to admit that he's looking forward to retiring. Between his daily chores as a winegrower and his endless duties as president of the VDP Mosel (see our story about the VDP at www.rieslingreport.com), Wilhelm has definitely earned a rest. His trophy shelf is full. Among many other honors and awards, he was named Germany's Winemaker of the Year by Gault Millau's Weinguide Deutschland in 1994, and his top dessert wines go for unbelievably high prices at the annual VDP auction in Trier.

In addition to making exceptional wines, Wilhelm and his wife, Ilse, have brought two gifted new winemakers into the world. Their oldest son, Thomas, has been running Schloss Lieser since 1993 and recently bought the estate outright. Their other son, Oliver, now runs the sizable winemaking operation at Deinhard-Wegeler in Rheingau.

It's still undecided, but Wilhelm hopes to retire in another two years or so, and he expects that Thomas will take over the Haag estate, keeping alive a family winemaking tradition that goes back to 1605. If you've had the pleasure to drink any of Thomas's precisely focused Schloss Lieser Rieslings, I think you'll agree that the Fritz Haag estate will be in very good hands. And you can bet that the next generation of Haags will have a properly stocked cellar to them focused on Wilhelm's legacy of consistency, craft and character.

March, 2001