Peter Lauer ‘Fass 8 Kupp’ Kabinett Riesling 2022

Location: Germany, Mosel

Winemaker: Florian Lauer

Grapes: Riesling

Winemaking: practicing organic, hand harvest, native yeast ferments

From the Importer Vom Boden: ‘Kupp Kabinett’ Absolutely nuts-o wine in 2022 – these are maybe the best Kabinetts Lauer has ever made? Which makes zero sense after 2021, I understand this, but still… it’s the lightness. And to prove just how absolutely nuts Lauer is, he made two Fuders of this wine and did not like the combined wine, so he is bottling them with separate AP numbers. Note: I have no idea what we’re getting and we are not going to make a stink about this – and you shouldn’t either. But what is beautiful about this is Lauer’s unwillingness to follow any ideology. Sometimes he finds blending casks better – sometimes not. And so here, two different Kabinetts.

“Lauer has gone cult”. I keep that quote largely for sentimental purposes. It was first penned by me, in the summer of 2011, as I was trying to come to terms with the stratospheric rise of Lauer, who was then still a bit of a newbie on the U.S. scene. It’s funny to read now, not even a decade later, as Lauer has been, unquestionably, established as one of the greatest addresses in Germany.

For purists, there is nothing like the Saar. It is arguably one of the greatest, most unique wine-growing regions on earth. The core of greatness in the Saar is intensity without weight, grandiosity without size. 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 and Florian Lauer is currently one of the greatest winemakers in this sacred place.

Florian’s general style is exactly the opposite of his famous Saar neighbor Egon Müller. At Lauer, the focus is on dry-tasting Rieslings as opposed to the residual sugar wines of the latter. For this style, there are really only two addresses in the Saar (though more come online every year, trying to chase the style): Lauer and Hofgut Falkenstein.

Employing natural-yeast fermentations, Lauer’s wines find their own balance. They tend to be more textural, deeper and more masculine. They have a preternatural sense of balance, an energy that is singular. Yet the hallmarks of the Saar are there: purity, precision, rigor, mineral.

Florian’s playground is the breathtaking hillside of the Kupp. Though the many vineyards of this mountain were unified (obliterated?) under the single name “Kupp” with the 1971 German wine law, it has been Florian’s life’s work to keep the old vineyard names alive, to keep these voices alive. He has been fighting this fight since his first vintage in 2005 and only with an update to the law in 2014 can he now legally use the older vineyard names such as Unterstenberg, Stirn, Kern and Neuenberg.

Florian fought the law, and he won.