2023 Peter Lauer Riesling Faß 16 Trocken

WINEMAKER: Florian Lauer
REGION: Mosel, GER
VARIETY: Riesling
VITICULTURE: Organic

The 2023er Riesling Trocken N°16 was made half from its own grapes harvested in Ayl and half from purchased grapes from Saarburg, Wawern, and Wiltingen. It has a spicy and zesty nose of earthy spices, smoke, licorice, wild herbs, and yellow peach. The wine proves light-bodied and delicately juicy, yet the herbal and spicy side quickly comes through and gives more freshness to this overall round and smooth wine. This is always a superb, elegant dry Riesling with laser focus and clarity.

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.

Florian Lauer is today making some of the best Riesling in Germany from his vines around the Saar town of Ayl. 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.