2021 Peter Lauer Ayler Riesling Faß 25
WINEMAKER: Florian Lauer
REGION: Saar, GER
VARIETAL: Riesling
VITICULTURE: Organic
Fass 25 is dry fermented. Coming from the eastern slopes of Scheidterberg and Rauberg, it reflects the spicy side of the Ayler Riesling terroir and displays fine herbal and saline notes. The 2021er Ayler Riesling N°25 is a dry wine (with 6 g/l of residual sugar) made from fruit picked on the Scheidterberg and Rauberg side hills. It proves rather backward and only reveals shy scents of bergamot, mirabelle, and smoky elements on the nose. After extensive airing, a touch of earthy spices joins the party. The wine proves firm and rather structured on the palate and leaves a precise and focused feel of tart herbs and faint orchard fruits in the long finish. This wine will really benefit from a year or more of bottle aging and should then prove a spicy expression of dry Saar Riesling.
For purists, there is nothing like the Saar. Saar shows intensity without weight, grandiosity without size: rocks and acidity. Frank Schoonmaker put it best in his 1956 tome The Wines of Germany: “In these great and exceedingly rare wines of the Saar, there is a combination of qualities which I can perhaps best describe as indescribable – austerity coupled with delicacy and extreme finesse, an incomparable bouquet, a clean, very attractive hardness tempered by a wealth of fruit and flavor which is overwhelming.” Yes, this is the Saar. Peter Lauer, founded in 1830, is currently one of greatest estates in this sacred place.
The style at Lauer is quite the opposite of his famous Saar neighbours, Egon Müller and Hanno Zilliken – the focus at Lauer is for dry and off-dry Rieslings bottled from single sites, identified by their cask number, as opposed to the Kabinett, Spätlese, Auslese wines of the latter two made using the German Prädikat System. Yet the hallmarks are similar: purity, precision, intensity, minerality.
Florian is a minimalist in their cellar. The only interventions are temperature control, a clarification prior to fermentation and battonage (stirring of the lees). The grapes ferment spontaneously with native yeast. Lees contact is allowed as well as some partial malolactic fermentation. As he describes it, "I don't look for malo but I don't avoid try to avoid it. It just happens in parallel." This approach takes the edge out of the acidity, and if done with care, doesn’t add simplifying lactic notes. The end results are undeniable: depth, texture, dimension, and clarity.