New Faces in the Mosel

22 wines from 7 growers - a mini-guide created with the help of Jan Matthias Klein

I see myself as an observer, not an influencer. But there have been occasional moments when I might have accidentally altered the course of history.

One example was a short piece about a Riesling that I wrote in 2016. A young winemaker from the Mosel, Jan Matthias Klein, had just bottled his first attempt at making a ‘natural’ wine. He admitted he was curious about the hype and wanted to understand the challenges - learning by doing.

Madcap Magnus 2015 was made with fruit from his top Riesling vineyard Steffensberg, without any additions or tweaks to the fermentation. Aged in 1,000 litre foudres and bottled by hand, it was fascinating - partly because it wasn’t totally dissimilar to his regular bottling made with more classical techniques.

Jan told me a couple of years later that my article had set Staffelter Hof - his family’s winery - on an entirely new path. Two guys from the UK showed up at the winery after reading the piece. They explained they were about to start a wine import company, and they wanted to work with Jan’s natural wines.

The following year, he made a second vintage of Madcap Magnus and added Little Bastard - an easy drinking, juicy blend of Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Müller-Thurgau and Muscat. It sold like hot cakes.

Now, eight years later, Jan’s natural wine range - bottled under the name Jan Matthias Klein, rather than the Staffelter Hof brand - accounts for the majority of his production, and those nascent wine importers¹ became his best customer. Depending on the year, there are up to nine or ten different labels, all with characterful labels drawn by his friend Aaron Scheuer.

It’s been wonderful to watch this project take off, and to see the wines evolve over the years. But a chance exchange between the two of us reminded me I hadn’t tasted Jan’s wines for over two years. He kindly offered to send me not only the latest vintages, but also some bottles from colleagues and collaborators in the region.

Faster than you could say “themed tasting”, I asked my favourite importer of all things Teutonic if he’d like to add a few wines. David Oranje (Umlaut wines) was more than happy to oblige. Now we had 22 wines from seven growers.

We sat down and tasted - blind, of course - together with Paulo de Almeida, fellow Riesling nut and co-owner of The Wine Spot in Amsterdam.

Here are the results.

Seven of the best

These are the wines that we collectively liked the most. My personal favourites are annotated ❤️. Organic certified= 🌿. Value pick (RRP under €20) = 🫰. No added sulphites = 0️⃣.