Lothar Kettern, Fio N.V. "Drink Me" Riesling, NatCool Liter (Mosel)

The Wine

Dirk and Daniel Niepoort, Philipp’s partners in Fio, developed the NatCool concept as an innovative way to attract new wine drinkers. The idea is to put wines whose watchword is “less is more” into liter bottles that sport eye-catching labels and offer them at a friendly price. So far, there are thirty producers on board with the project.

Philipp’s version is characteristically original. Steep-slope Riesling , 30% of whose grapes are not pressed before being added to the pressed wine, followed by two years of aging on the lees. The result is a lissome, balletic, salty wine that, as is often true here, is much more serious than its whimsical label might suggest!

The Winery

This was a new discovery for us, recommended by our trusted importer of many decades, WineWise. So I'll let them tell the story of the winery, and how it came into their US imports portfolio:

Our favorite way to meet new producers is to have them recommended by our friends. So when Michi Moosbrugger of Schloss Gobelsburg said that he knew this “crazy guy in the Mosel” making great wines, our ears pricked up.

The connection between them is famed Douro producer Dirk Neepoort, whose son Daniel lived with the Kettern family in Piesport for four vintages, followed now by his brother Marco. Together they have a project called Fio, making “Natural Wines” that challenge the old order and which we are now importing for the first time.

Under the Kettern label, they offer the tried-and-true classics. In the 2020 Gault Millau Guide, Fio was anointed “Discovery of the Year” and both estates were promoted to 3.5 and 3 stars respectively. Schildknecht has also reviewed the wines most favorably, so we have a tiger by the tail, and you read about it here first!

The estate was founded in the 1950’s by Lothar, but son Philipp has been in charge since 2009. To describe him as iconoclastic is an understatement. There is a paradox at work in Piesport which is that the easy-to-cultivate (but inferior) vineyards on the flatlands on one side of the river cost much more than the fabled challenges of growing grapes on the steep slopes of the Goldtröpfchen bowl on the other.

But Philipp is a maniac for quality, so he traded almost all the land bought by his father for more challenging but infinitely more rewarding parcels in the Goldtröpfchen, including some in the great Falkenberg portion and other higher parts whose cooler micro-climates accord better with his aims.

In the last years, he has expanded into Leiwen, buying parcels in the great Josefsberg vineyard, as well as increasing his holdings in Piesport. He has converted the estate to something approaching organic viticulture, while pushing the envelope with Fio and its low-sulphur wines. He has also converted most of his production to dry and off-dry wines, while maintaining the noble tradition of classically sweet Mosels to the manner born.

In short, he offers us something of everything – bone-tingling, electric Mosel classics, modern dry wines and cutting-edge natural wines.