A Peter Lauer sign post marking one of their plots of old vines in the formerly called Unterstenberg (“Unterstenbersch”) section of today’s Ayler Kupp. This particular parcel in Unterstenberg is trained on wooden stakes, others on wires.

“From 60-year-old vines in arguably the prime south-facing and deepest slate spot along the length of its Einzellage, the 2009 Ayler Kupp Riesling Fass 12 Unterstenberg finished dry-tasting and with 12% alcohol, which—in defiance of a vintage trend—represented, says Florian Lauer, a less efficient than anticipated conversion of sugar to alcohol. Succulent, ripe white peach tinged with the bitterness of its pit accompanied by a pungent amalgam of herbal with smoky, stony, savory-saline mineral notes (including alluring lobster shell-reduction) inform a satiny yet vivacious, palpably extract-rich yet in no way heavy performance that ought to reward for at least 15 years.” —David Schildknecht

Above: An old worn-out Fuder in Stein’s cellar in Bullay. Because it’s difficult to find and expensive to buy a new Fuder, Ulli Stein tries to replace his traditional Mosel barrels from fellow colleagues, often retiring growers, who are willing to sell these off at a fair price. Yet, great care must be taken to make sure that the barrels are in good condition so as to avoid off-smells and -flavors, such as from old wood or taint from the use of sorbic acid, which was quite prevalent among growers in making sweeter style wines a few decades ago, especially in certain communes.

Left: A brand new Fuder at Maximin Grünhaus. The oak comes from the woods, grown in slate, atop their hillside vineyard. Carl von Schubert, who gave us a tour of the cellar, had one of the last remaining local coopers, based in the nearby village of Kasel, to make this and other barrels for him. For the first few vintages, the grapes for their Weißburgunder (Pinot Blanc) go in new Fuder in order to leech out some of the oak flavors before they ferment and age Riesling in it.

On a recent visit to Clemens Busch in Pünderich, we had the great fortune one evening to taste some mature wines, including a delicious 1994 Pündericher Marienburg Riesling Kabinett trocken (dry). As seen on the picture (with some Comté), the bottle was adorned with an old handwritten label. We also tasted, among other back-vintage bottlings, a 1985 Riesling Spätlese trocken and an excellent 1990 Riesling Kabinett trocken, both from Marienburg. Who says light dry Mosel Riesling cannot age? Clemens Busch made a reputation—not only for organic viticulture on the Mosel—but for dry Riesling Kabinetts and Spätlesen. Today, as a member of the VDP, he no longer can use these Prädikat designations for his dry Riesling from Marienburg. These are only used for fruity and nobly sweet wines. His Kabinett, for example, is now simply labeled “Riesling trocken,” and his former two-star Spätlese trocken is called today vom grauen Schiefer (“from gray slate”).

A view of the the Saar and in the background the famous Ockfener Bockstein from Lambertskirch. (Click on link for the same view at around the turn of the 20th century.)

You’re reading it here first: Florian Lauer of Weingut Peter Lauer has purchased an old historic vineyard site called Lambertskirch, just downstream from his steep old-vine parcel in Schonfels—another highly regarded site on the Saar that Florian has restored to prominence. Lambertskirch was once farmed by his grandfather and will need to be cleared of thorny scrub and trees and replanted from old cuttings. The soil is full of gray slate with an outcropping at the top. 

Lambertskirch is located above a former church graveyard of the parish St. Lambert, which belonged to the villages of Ayl, Biebelhausen, the farm “auf Kaipig,” Niederleuken, and Saarburg. It’s uncertain when the parish lost its function as a house of worship. In 1803 the Bishop Mannay noted that there were neither benches nor confessionals inside. Although in 1826 a wedding is supposed to have taken place here. At around 1850 today’s chapel was erected on the spot of the rundown church.

Legend has it that a pilgrim from the Orient came to the area in about 1150. One saw that he had seen better days and he took strict vows, it seems, for his wrongdoings. To honor the holy Lambert he decided to build a chapel here, where he lived as a hermit in order to do penance.

A 1920s’ photograph of Lambertskirch with vines in foreground.

Bottling in the 1950s, grandfather Peter Lauer I “Senior” (with glass).

The talented Saar vintner Florian Lauer (with arm draped over an old Hösch cask numbered 835) and I pictured squatting for the camera. Cask 835 has marc (in German Trester) from vintages 2007 and 2008. The Lauer’s Riesling marc is distilled in the old manner at a friend’s winery in Kanzem and then brought back to Ayl and aged for eight years in their vaulted cellar.

A friend, Marco Gruben, getting ready to taste some cask-aged marc in Peter Lauer’s cellar.

Kaiserthermen, the Roman imperial baths in Trier, built around the 3rd and 4th centuries. Viticulture is believed to be on the Mosel even before the arrival of the Romans. The latter are thought to have been making wines here at about the same time as in Burgundy.

Continuing our vineyard snow theme, here’s a shot of Weiser-Künstler’s Enkircher Ellergrub, one of the top sites (according to the old Prussian tax maps) along the Middle Mosel. Their old, ungrafted Riesling vines on terraces originally belonged to Immich-Batterieberg, which still holds—further downstream—a first-rate section in Ellergrub, also with a high proportion of old and ungrafted vines.

A view of Pündericher Marienburg in snow. The area just to the right of the Fahrlay terraces and the rocky outcropping is the formerly named Treppchen (“little steps”). This part of the slope, predominantly with gray slate, was replanted after the remodeling and reallocation of parcels (Flurbereinigung) in the 1980s. It’s a prime south-facing section of the Marienburg hillside, where Clemens Busch harvest the grapes for their Riesling vom grauen Schiefer and Grosses Gewächs. Photo courtesy of Clemens Busch.

Konstantin Weiser of Weiser-Künstler picking out the raisins for their 2010 Auslese; the healthy, non-botrytized grapes are for their much-loved Ellergrub Kabi from old ungrafted Riesling vines grown on terraces.

Beate & Matthias Knebel emailed this beautiful photograph of Winninger Röttgen in their Holiday greeting today. I felt it should be posted on our blog.

In Terrassenkultur an der Untermosel (Terraces of the Lower Mosel, 2003), Joachim Krieger writes that Röttgen (on old maps spelled Rötchen) was only second to Uhlen in esteem. Records of Röttgen as a single vineyard go back as early as 1820. Many of the drywall terraces in today’s Röttgen were formed from controlled demolitions. (It was a method that Carl August Immich made famous in the mid-19th century by using dynamite to blow up a slate outcropping in Enkircher Zeppwingert to form the monopole site called Batterieberg.) In the eyes of vintners and experts alike, Röttgen is equivalent to Uhlen. The wines from Röttgen tend to be more delicate and lively than Uhlen. Röttgen is one of the most dramatic sites on the Mosel, and one of our favorite selections is Knebel Röttgen trocken.

A look down the steep and stony Batterieberg. Photo courtesy of Gernot Kollmann of Immich-Batterieberg.

A plot of Peter Lauer’s old Riesling vines trained on wooden stakes at Unterstenberg (“at the foot of the hill”), a pre-1933 named section of the hillside, that goes in their wine called “Unterstenbersch.” The “sch” at the end is patois in order to avoid problems with the authorities, for the official (extended) site name is Ayler Kupp, and the former designation Unterstenberg is no longer allowed. (Weinhof Herrenberg, in Schoden, did the same with the spelling “Hehrenbersch.”) In 1933, the various named sections (such as Kupp, Unterstenberg, Stirn, Herrenberg, or Neuberg) merged into Kupp. After the 1971 Wine Law (i.e., in 1973), the Kupp expanded further to include other neighboring hillside vineyards, some more noble (Saarfeilser and Schonfels) than others (Sonnenberg). Florian Lauer prefers to use the former site-specific names, but refuses to call a wine “Ayler Kupp” from a vineyard that is not part of the original hillside, even if it has an incline and slate soils.

Photograph by Tobias Hannemann.

In Joachim Krieger’s Terrassenkultur an der Untermosel (Terraces of the Lower Mosel, 2003), he describes that the name Uhlen comes from Eulen (owls), which like to nest on the rocks and stonewalls on the upper section, at the edge of the woods. Uhlen is the most dramatic and prestigious site on the entire Lower Mosel. It’s a prime example of a terraced vineyard—an imposing south-facing site between the villages of Winningen and Kobern that is over 200 meters high and one-and-half kilometers long. In the early 19th century Uhlen (back then “die Ullen”) was the highest-ranked site in the region. Krieger writes that the plural form of the name doesn’t only refer to owls, but also indicates that there were different site names, such as “Lower Uhlen,” “Upper Uhlen,” or “At the Blaufüßerlay.” Knebel owns several well-placed plots in Uhlen. The wines are known for their metallic minerality and saltiness and need time in bottle.

Sven Enderle takes a backseat to Florian Moll’s dogs. In the following text, I  translated Florian’s report on Enderle & Moll’s 2010 vintage and the soon-to-be-bottled 2009 Pinot Noirs.

With the past year now behind us, it was certainly the most labor intensive since establishing our domaine. The weather and fluctuations in temperature were too ambivalent from the outset. This means for us, quite concretely, more work with the vines, more work passages, and more time needed for the individual vineyard parcels. In the end the work was worth it, and we could bring into the cellar in late September after three or four early passes in the vineyards less grapes than expected, though, therefore of very good quality. The [wild-yeast] fermentation of each lot was uncomplicated and went as planned, so that we were really pleased with the young wines at the end of fermentation and are already excited at how the wines will taste in a couple of months when the malo is completed!

It looks to be already a great vintage based on the aromas, density, and color of the wines. And contrary to the ramblings that this vintage couldn’t bring anything, because of the weather and temperature, and rather would be one of the worst of the last years, we’re of a different opinion. Warm temperatures and an even vegetative period don’t necessarily equate per se to the more complex and intensive aromas in a grape. This development of aromas is precisely dependent on several other factors, which are not solely related to weather and temperature. In fact, we’re convinced that certain weather fluctuations and differences foster various aromas, and changing weather (and naturally the vegetative period) brings forth maybe the more complex and “thrilling” wines… We’re absolutely excited how the 2010 vintage will develop in some of the newly-acquired casks from Burgundy’s David Duband.

The 2009 Pinot Noirs are showing well right before bottling, which David Schildknecht confirmed to us on his visit several weeks ago [en route from Frankfurt to Alsace] in order to taste our 2009s in cask. According to this [the quality of the individual casks], there will be as of the 2009 vintage alongside our standard Pinot Noir for the first time a higher quality Pinot with the new name “Village,” which includes grapes from both our colored-sandstone and shell-limestone parcels. The best casks from the different soil types will then be bottled separately as  “Buntsandstein” and “Muschelkalk,” respectively, whereby the number of bottles for each cru will be quite limited. The bottling date for the 2009 Pinot Noirs has been set for mid-December and the second half of January 2010, followed by our rosé, Grauburgunder (Pinot Gris), and Müller-Thürgau (all from 2010).

The idyllic and largely forgotten Oberemmeler Altenberg on the Saar. The parcel of old Riesling vines in the foreground are from vintner Moritz Gogrewe. Oberemmeler Hütte and Scharzhofberg can be seen in the background. Another friend, Per Linder, helped Moritz during this year’s harvest, when the photograph was taken, courtesy of Isabelle Fredriksson.

An ex-Burgundy cask being cleaned before the 2010 harvest at Immich-Batterieberg. Photograph courtesy of Gernot Kollmann.

Gernot Kollmann, director and cellar master at Immich-Batterieberg, forwarded me his report on the 2010 vintage, my translation below. The photograph is from Gernot of grapes picked in Batterieberg. By the way, Gernot’s first vintage at the estate, 2009, is exceptional.

There are essentially three defining factors for the 2010 vintage:

1. It was an extremely small harvest. That it would be so small, I was already sure of in late August, after the grapes were—as they say—“in wine.” It became clear then that even the young vines at the foot of the slope had achieved only a small thickness of the grape skins. This is often the basis for a very good vintage, but in combination with the botrytis resulted in a “total economic meltdown.” We had only about 20 hl/ha. With other estates, which work similarly with low yields, it looks more or less the same.

2. The botrytis had “found a home,” fostered by some extreme warm and wet September days, particularly the ripest [most precocious] sites. It was in those parcels with an especially good ripeness level due to yields and in those with too much nitrogen supply. The infection [botrytis] came quite suddenly and due to its late arrival could no longer be stopped.

In terms of timing, it was between the so-called noble and sour rot [the latter infects unripe bunches], which has led to the rare situation of very high must-weight levels alongside extremely high acidity—botrytis berries have up to 18 grams per liter [!]. Atypical for such an early botrytis is that it tastes rather clean. There will indeed be many unique sweet wines, that is wines needing a relatively long maturity [in bottle] and with a fairly dry, sweet-sour expression. The top sites with slightly richer soils, more often on the lower third of a slope, or how Markus Molitor says his “crown jewels,” were most affected by botrytis this year. At Immich-Batterieberg, the perfectly south-facing sites with more top soil, such as in Steffensberg, were more affected than the stony, arid plots in the southwest-facing plots in Batterieberg or Ellergrub, where we harvested healthy grapes to the very end. I couldn’t tell real differences between conventional (with or without botryticides) and organic viticulture. [Gernot began in 2010 to work organically.] The character of the sites was more defining (incidentally, also an experience from 2006, when chemicals seriously failed…).

3. The third significant factor is the high acid levels. On the one hand, as described under the second point, the high levels came from the early concentration of the botrytis, but on the other hand, the year was already geared to a late picking, when the main Riesling harvest takes place on the Mosel, not until the last week of October, or (better) the first week of November, so the trade-off between saving quantity and gaining maturation of the remaining healthy grapes often led to panic among wineries. Many vintners also noticed that from the third week of October the botrytis had not spread, so that with healthy grapes one could calmly poker a bit. We harvested several lots with a pH of 3.1, which one can live with, and more acidity will precipitate later on.

Our strategy in this vintage was to pick early with a small group of harvesters the botrytized bunches and to vinify these separately, which was also done because of the specific needs during pressing these grapes and the other [natural] methods of clarifying the musts. But then I added the botrytized bunches from this first passage with the healthy grapes, that way they could co-ferment, leading to a “lighter” style of wine than when one beefs up a wine with BA [Beerenauslese] or subsequently includes all botrytized grapes without special handling into the mix. We were also able to let healthy grapes hang longer and to allow for a few hours of pre-fermentation maceration, which further reduces the acidity. Even in this year, we didn’t de-acidify, and I think we have attractive musts in the cellar. Meanwhile, all the wines have begun to [spontaneously] ferment, and I rely on a rather final and warm fermentation, because I want to achieve a good glycerin output (makes the wines softer, smoother, and longer) and the resulting, larger yeast population helps with clarification and reduction, and thus goes against the more oxidative botrytis vintage characteristics—malolactic fermentation this year is not to be expected of wines without de-acidification. That’s the theory at least, let’s wait and see what happens.

On a chilly Sunday morning hike from Schoden to Ayl, I took this shot of the east-southeast-facing section of the Ayler Kupp, nearer Biebelhausen. Peter Lauer has plots of vines here, though starting mid-slope and more south-facing (at the upper left-hand part of the slope on the photo), that go in their Faß 1 and 3 bottlings.