Read more about the 2010 collection from Weingut Peter Lauer or just click here for Lauer's 2010 lineup.

Blick auf alten Ayler Neuen

The Palmberg Terrassen is a completely unknown, roughly 5-hectare vineyard that is more than farmed by the Stein family; it is loved by the family. There's a devotion here, a connection to the land that is humbling. Ulli Stein's 87-year-old father has been making wine here since the early 1960s and he still visits the site almost daily, tending to his vines and drinking the wines of the vineyard as often as he can. Ulli Stein's 2008 Palmberg-Terrassen is dense and saturating, darn-near glossy with extract - lime zest, razor-sharp citrus, wild green herbs. The 2008 Stein Palmberg-Terrassen is likely the greatest Riesling value on earth.

Click the button below to see our real-time online inventory of Stein's 2008 St. Aldegunder Palmberg Terrassen Spatlese Trocken:

Roses dot the vineyard here and small sheds provide respite. Due to the severity of the incline, obviously working this site is extremely difficult and tiring. Many acres of the site have gone fallow, overrun by the wilderness. At this point, to the best of our knowledge, the Steins are the only serious producers within the vineyard, farming 1.3 hectares of the site and producing a scant 2 Füders worth of juice - that's only about 230 cases. The 2007 is THE FIRST bottling to be imported into the U.S.!

The shrine that Ulli Stein's father built within the vineyard. To this day, at 87-years-old, Herr Stein still visits his vineyard almost daily. In this picture you also see the "Terrassen," or terraces, that largely define the landscape of the Lower Mosel.

Here you get a real sense of just how very steep this vineyard is.

Another, slightly more panoramic view of the Palmberg-Terrassen vineyard.

Click the button below to see our real-time online inventory of Stein's 2008 St. Aldegunder Palmberg Terrassen Spatlese Trocken:

Weingut Knebel is situated in what is considered the Lower Mosel's best village, Winningen. It is also happens to be one of the warmest areas in the Mosel and therefore the style at Knebel (especially for the dry wines) is muscular and powerful, while (almost miraculously) elegant.

Knebel's dry wines are made by Gernot Kollman, the former winemaker at Van Volxem. The noble sweet wines, also held in the highest regard, are made by Beatte Knebel. Gernot works in a hands-off manner with indigenous yeasts while also using ambitious methods to extract profound aromatics and concentration from the grapes: pre-fermentation oxidation, extended skin contact and high fermentation temperatures.

The steeply terraced and visually stunning vineyards of the Lower Mosel don't offer an easy life to those who tend them. They are laborious and costly to work and their obscurity means the grapes they produce often fetch a low price.

More work, less pay. This cruel formula often results in two contrasting issues - one good, one bad.

Joe and I were pretty excited to host a dinner last Sunday at Hearth in NYC starring none other than Van Volxem's owner: Roman Niewodniczanski. Pretty much everything you've heard about him is true. He is very tall and he is very opinionated. He's not shy. And he's also making some of the most serious dry Rieslings in the Saar Valley. As an heir to the Bitburger beer fortune he's applied a "spare no expense" philosophy to his estate: Manic vineyard work, crazy-low yields sourced from some of the top sites of the Saar: Scharzhofberger, Altenberg and Gottesfuss to name a few. This was the first tasting of his 2007 single-vineyard wines, so it was sort of a treat to be the first in the U.S. to taste these dry Rieslings.

Middle Mosel Magic
2009 Schloss Lieser Juffer Sonnenuhr Spätlese
The Best of the Mosel in 2009 - SUPER LIMITED!

"...many reports are circulating that the Schloss Lieser 2009ers are amongst the greatest wines produced in Germany this year." - John Gilman, View from the Cellar

So writes Mr. John Gilman in his 2009 German report. He continues: "It's a rumor I cannot confirm or deny right now, but which I intend to verify as soon as I can sink my teeth into some of their wines from this vintage."

While we wait, I'm happy to confirm the rumor.

Two is Better than One
2009 Willi Schaefer Domprobst Spätlesen

Details matter and today we zero in on the bottom edge of what has to be one of the best labels in all of Germany.

On the Willi Schaefer label, this is where the AP number lives, the equivalent of wine's social security number.

Grand Cru Dry Ruwer Riesling
2009 Karthäuserhof Grosses Gewächs 375ml
120 Half-Bottles for the U.S.

They're only little looking.

Karthäuserhof's first-ever Grosses Gewächs is a spectacular dry Ruwer Riesling. It has all the mineral and forest-floor complexity that makes this storied estate famous, yet it is grand, muscular and dense with detail and vigor.

Middle Mosel Magic, Part II (The Dry Side)
2009 Schloss Lieser Niederberg Helden GG
Our Single Parcel has Arrived - Special Pricing

"...many reports are circulating that the Schloss Lieser 2009ers are amongst the greatest wines produced in Germany this year." - John Gilman, View from the Cellar

Heed Gilman's words, above, because the 2009 Schloss Liesers truly are among the most profound Middle Mosel Rieslings from this vintage.

The style is 100% Mosel - an incredible articulation of fruit and acidity, each finely woven around the other and each simply razor-sharp. There is a structural rigor to the 2009 Niederberg Helden that calls to mind the world's truly epic dry Rieslings, from Alsace's Clos Ste. Hune to Klaus-Peter Keller's grand dry Rieslings. And while the stature of the Schloss Lieser is certainly more compact, more diminutive... finer... this is indeed part of the magic.

Powerful Restraint
2008 Zilliken Saarburger Rausch Spätlese AUCTION
Rare Auction Bottlings from the Ruthless 2008 Vintage

Can you say "Versteigerung?"

This is the German word for "auction" and if you're talking about German wines, the circular Auction sticker is a very, very good sign.