Lauer Grand Cru “Stirn” 2022 (white)

Lauer Grand Cru “Stirn” 2022

Riesling

Mosel, Germany

““Stirn” can be translated, roughly, as “forehead.” While the name might seem vague when looking at the map (available in the gallery to the left), when you scroll through the photos in this gallery, Stirn is the highest of the sections: the top third as it were. Thus you can see Stirn is indeed the “forehead” of the hillside.

As with Unterstenberg (Stirn’s exact opposite, roughly 300 feet down the mountain), the location of Stirn shapes absolutely everything about the wine; this is the peak of the hill, exposed to everything. As such, Stirn is a brutal micro-climate. Because of the incline of the site, there is rarely much water here, even in wet years. The vines’ roots must go deep for any water, pushing through the thick bedrock of slate. All the soil and fine, weathered slate has been washed down the mountain over the ages, thus in this vineyard we have larger shards of slate and little else. There is almost no soil. The lack of water and soil mean that the vines struggle; Florian can harvest this site a week or two weeks later than nearly all the others and the ripeness is often still quite low. As Stirn is literally blasted by the wind whipping down the river valley, there is rarely any botrytis here.

What does this mean for the wine itself? Stirn tends to be one of the most nervous, linear and soaring of all of Lauer’s wines. It rarely ferments much past 30 grams of residual sugar per liter, thus it certainly is an off-dry Riesling. And yet, because of the extraordinarily high acidity (and low pH), the wine never tastes very sweet. In fact, the razor-sharp grip and density of the wine can make it feel almost dry, at least on the rather gripping finish. For what it’s worth, I believe this is one of Florian’s – and one of the Saar’s – most profound expressions of Riesling.”

The 2022er 'Stirn' No.15, as it is referred to in the central part of the label, is a fully off-dry wine (with 36 g/l of residual sugar) made from fruit picked in the prime south-west-facing, upper-front part of the original Ayler Kupp hill. It reveals a fully aromatic and appealing nose of yellow fruits (pineapple, Conference pear, and quince), candied grapefruit, tangerine, green apple, anise, oriental spices, and smoke. The wine proves fully off dry on the palate as plenty of sweet and ripe fruits come through. The finish is structured and has more mineral elements with zesty and minty elements. This beautiful fully off-dry Riesling needs a few years to fully deliver.

-Vom Boden