2010 Ayler Scheidterberg Beerenauslese 150 Oechsle

Originating in the Scheidterberg and like most of the nobly sweet elixirs in this collection picked relatively early, Lauer’s 2010 Riesling Beerenauslese Scheidt offers an intensely honeyed expression of sheer botrytis secretions with a correspondingly oily feel. Musk, brown spices, candied lemon peel, and smoky black tea lend nose-wrinkling intriguing and palate counterpoint to this brightly energetic (15 grams acid) variation on B.A. that comes off more like an Eiswein. Less unruly than its counterpart from the Rauberg and with its high residual sugar strikingly subliminated under the influence of freakishly high acidity and extract, this is likely to prove fascinating to follow for two or three decades, though as with so many nobly sweet wines of its vintage, I would certainly want to monitor the sensory evolution of its acid. Florian Lauer has been convinced from early-on that his 2010 collection will prove a highpoint of his young career. Certainly there can be no arguing about the fact that highly unusual circumstances called forth from him corresponding creativity and that the resulting collection – among other things in its tendency toward residual sweetness (always relying on ambient yeasts for fermentation) and its sheer number and volume of nobly sweet bottlings (700 liters of B.A. alone) – is unprecedented in this estate’s history. “Certainly I never witnessed anything like 2010 nor harvested anything like its array of long-lived upper-Pradikat wines,” remarks Peter Lauer, “and I wish I could ask my grandfather whether anything like this occurred during his tenure.” Picking here commenced October 10 and went well into November. Florian Lauer deemed failures his early attempts (along with Manfred Loch) at testing-out double-salt de-acidification, and in the end relied on skin contact, lees contact, and in many instances (encouraged by batonnage) malo-lactic conversion to tame the vintage’s high acids. Regrettably, Florian Lauer neglected to show me his 2010 Saarfeilser; the sole bottle of Kern he had set aside for us to taste was corked; and repeated attempts to acquire a bottle of either thereafter did not succeed, though hopefully I shall eventually taste and report on both wines. (Some of each had been set-aside for the U.S. market with a projected retail price of $49.00.) Most of the wines were bottled in June, even though a number of them did not finish fermenting much ahead of that. Importer: Mosel Wine Merchant (various importers); tel. (413) 429-6176; dm@moselwinemerchant.com ; +49 (0) 6742 8980 50