Fio Wines - Falkenberg 2016
We are starting a small series of matured Rieslings with a bottle of Falkenberg 2016 from Fio Wines on the Moselle.
It’s time again for a small thematically connected series of wines here on the blog. This time, they will be more or less aged Rieslings. The moment I realize that we are now only one year away from including the 2016 vintage in a 10-years-after tasting is always a small shock. 2016. It feels like it was just yesterday. Becoming aware that this isn’t the case, and then opening bottles with exactly this awareness, bottles that you would otherwise think “can wait” and move on, this is regularly urgently necessary. And we’ll combine the necessary with the useful and simply write about a few such bottles. With the 2016 Falkenberg from Fio, I’m relatively relaxed about the maturity. At Mythos Mosel 2022, we tasted the 2014 Fio at the stand, which had then been in the bottle about as long as this Falkenberg is now, and there was absolutely no sign of maturity. The trick is, at least according to the Fio Wines team, time when making the wine, time in the barrel, time on the lees. Fio Wines consists of Daniel and Dirk van der Niepoort and Philipp Kettern. The desire to produce classic, great Mosel Rieslings brought the three together, who have been making wine together on the Mosel since 2012.
The Piesporter Falkenberg lies high above Piesport directly below the forest and faces southeast. For those who want to see it for themselves, Mythos Mosel is recommended, which this year is visiting exactly this section. We don’t know yet if it will fit into our schedule, but seeing the slate slopes towering before you in the real world is always worth a trip. After hand harvesting, the Riesling is spontaneously fermented and then aged for over a year on the complete lees in old, large Mosel casks before spending another year in stainless steel tanks. Only before bottling does it receive a minimal dose of sulfur and then rests for some time at the winery before going on sale. And then it lay here for a few more years. I’ve generally had really good experiences with 2016, and so I’m, unlike with 2018, completely relaxed about the maturity. The long aging should contribute its share to longevity. That’s the hope at least. The really long piece of tree bark that I pull from the bottle, while simultaneously sinking a piece of wax capsule into it, provides additional security.
So nose into the glass and immediately a blissful smile spreads. There’s real power in the nose, fine yellow fruit and lots of spice and stone. The fruit is just starting to shift from yellow towards orange and becoming creamier, thus announcing the bottle aging. The first sips are then austere and stony. It becomes increasingly juicy on the tongue only to say goodbye with a proper edge at the finish. Air changes this feeling then. It slowly becomes softer and after having the wine on the tongue, it smells fruitier than at the very beginning. This is elegant, straightforward and very typical Riesling. If I didn’t know that the wine is now 9 years old, I wouldn’t believe it. It’s so clear, so radiant and so fresh, where could the years be hiding. It then grooves in and stays exactly like that all evening. Even when the glass stands longer, the freshness, the stone and the depth never disappear. This is an impressively good wine where I don’t dare estimate how long it can continue to mature. Besides the fruit becoming slightly creamy, only a small hint of toffee, which appears when the wine has long since disappeared, suggests that the wine wasn’t just recently bottled.
I’m even more impressed on the second evening, because even the night in the refrigerator changes nothing. There is simply nothing to describe that would have changed. Slim, elegant, stony freshness, beautiful yellow-orange fruit and a minimal touch of maturity. What more could one want from a nine-year-old bottle of Riesling. I at least can’t imagine what would be missing. A complete Mosel Riesling that perhaps even needed the years. That’s the annoying thing about buying only one bottle, because I have no idea how it tasted when young. This doesn’t diminish the pleasure, just the insight. And I can more than live with that.