After leaving school with 14, Rudolf Trossen wasn't planning to make wine in his parents small winery. He met his wife Rita a little later and together they had plans to move to Berlin and enjoy life far away from rural narrow minded Mosel. Unfortunately his father died in a tractor accident and suddenly young Rudi had to take over the family business. He despised the chemical treatments they were applying and in 1978 he was most likely the first switching to bio-dynamics in winemaking. While experimenting with his winemaking in the 80s he soon became recognized for making some of the cleanest wines in the Mosel. After a visit from some Copenhagen sommeliers a couple of years ago he started making wines without any filtering or sulfites. He's still only farming 2.5 hectares and we're lucky we got some of his rare wines.
It's not every year Rudi makes this wine, as sometimes yields are too low to make a "fun" wine. And fun it is. The grapes come from two 50-year old vineyards with windy slopes pointing south. After harvest at the beginning of October the directly pressed grapes fermented quickly in a wooden barrel for two months. After bottling the wine started to ferment slowly during winter until enough CO2 was in the bottle. One difference to many other Pet Nats out there: this wine was not disgorged, so expect a healthy amount of yeast. It smells and tastes like ripe apples and you might be able to taste some mandarine zest followed by some herbal notes. You might be too quick with finishing this bottle before even sitting down for dinner. Otherwise this should be good with a simple grilled chicken and potatoes.