This bottling, more than any of Lauer's other off-dry Grand Crus, seems to have garnered a unique, cult-like status.
It is also one of our staff favorites.
The "Stirn" is a bottle that so perennially over-delivers, that is so profoundly linear and elegant, that articulates a conception of delicately off-dry balance that it can come from nowhere else other than from the Saar, and from no one else other than Florian Lauer.
 |
If you know this wine, then we have for you a fill-your-cellar price of $42.95 a bottle on the four-pack.Â
The 2023 edition is one of the most exuberant, joyous, and perfumed expressions of the last decade. Yet, for all these fine layers, all this mouth-watering stone fruit and salty minerality, the wine is, as always, incredibly attenuated, with a fine-ness that is nearly indescribable.
The site, "Stirn," translates to "forehead" - this is the top of the Kupp mountain. Up here it is cold and windy, and you can taste this energy, this freshness, in the wine.
Only here, at the top of the mountain, could a wine have this preternatural balance: delicately off-dry, yet still almost dry tasting.Â
If Florian Lauer is one of the most versatile winemakers in the Saar, with an almost incomprehensible breadth of offerings, his Stirn bottling stands alone. The wine flaunts, year after year, an unforgettable sense of harmony.Â
To order, email offers@crushwineco.com or call the store at (212) 980-9463.
Joe Salamone
Wine Buyer
Crush Wine & Spirits
