Fio Wines - 'Piu Piu', Pet Nat Riesling, Mosel, Germany (NV)

TASTING NOTES

Like a ripe fruit salad with a touch of salt sprinkled on top and a slice of rhubarb pie, crust and all. A lovely, fine fizz, characteristic acidity and a powerful, smooth body. This is yum!

Part barrel-aged with grapes from Grand Cru vines. This experimental wine is truly ‘natural’, with SIX years on lees, no added sulphites and of course unfiltered.

The name Fio means ‘thread’ in Portuguese. The estate is a joint venture connecting two families: the Kettern family, who have been making wine in the Mosel for several hundred years, and the Niepoort family, led by famed Portuguese winemaker, Dirk Niepoort. Dirk had learned some winemaking from the late Wilhelm Haag in the Mosel and so had been searching for a project in the Mosel with his sons when they met Philipp Kettern of Lothar Kettern in Piesport.

The wines are all grown on steep slopes in the villages of Piesport and Leiwen. Biodynamic practices, natural fermentations in very old Mosel fuder barrels and without sulphites (which is only used at bottling and in low levels).