Winemaker: Philip Lardot Location: Bullay, Mosel 🇩🇪
Size of domain: 1ha + purchased grapes
Terroir: Blue & grey slate from steep slopes up to 60 degrees.
Grapes: Riesling, Muller-Thurgau, Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris.
Viticulture: Lutte raisonée, no pesticides or herbicides, minimal fungicides.
A dear friend, a talented winemaker, an ancient wine region and tons of minerality, all in one. Discover the range of wines that Finnish-Dutch winemaker Philip Lardot creates in the Mosel from old vines and steep parcels.
Believe us, the steep slopes of the Mosel are not for the faint-hearted: close to Philip's house is the world's steepest vineyard, the Bremmer Calmont. Pretty much a cliff with vines on them. And even though pretty much everybody in the world agrees this area is home to some of the world's greatest Rieslings, it's an area in decline.
Vines are being ripped out by old vintners whose children either have moved to Berlin or just can't be bothered, selling them is hardly worth the trouble. Philip is one of the few that still sees the true potential and is painstakingly working these slopes to create mineral, rich, voluptuous, terroir driven, natural wines. Riesling of course, but don't miss the MĂĽller-Thurgau, Pinot Gris or Pinot Noir, if they're not sold out yet.
We have known Philip since 13 years old, pretty much growing up together in the city of Alkmaar, the Netherlands. Definitely the smartest kid we knew, fluent in at least four languages and freewheeling through school, spent a year surfing and snowboarding afterwards before finishing Hotel Management school.
At some point we were both working this terrible wine sales job when we took a weekend trip to the Mosel in 2013; a 3 day harvest with Clemens Busch turned out to be enough to convince Philip to give up his life in Amsterdam and for him and his girlfriend Zindzi to pack up and move to PĂĽnderich, an ancient village on the banks of the Mosel river.
7 years later there's a Mosel child born, a house, a dog and a winery. Growing steadily but far from any large quantity. But, there's a special move on the horizon: Philip and his family are taking over the Weingut Stein in a couple of years. You can read more about that on Stein's profile.
Philip employs his own style in making wine, creating Rieslings (and others) that are both completely unique + different and classic at the same time. Making non-intervention wines means that the wines will ferment dry and will undergo malolactic fermentations, reds of course, but also the whites. All indigenous yeasts in used barrels, with a little experimentation with concrete eggs and acacia barrels in the mix.
This all creates rich, voluptuous, serious mineral wines that show the full (and unique) potential of its place. Where the Mosel standard often means high acid, low alcohol, cleanly filtered wines, Philip's wines basically are the opposite. But at the same time, they might be as 'Mosel' as it gets, seeing that this is how the wines were made before modern techniques entered the game.
Der Hirt, Der Graf and Der Bauer are all references to the vineyards Philip can not name under German law. We're not playing favorites here, these are truly singular wines.
instagram.com/p.lardot
