Rita + Rudolf Trossen "Lay Pur'us"

Grape: Riesling

Region: Mosel, Germany

Vinification Method:Grapes are hand harvested and whole bunches are fermented in a 1000-liter wooden tank with indigenous yeast. The wine cooled by ambient air and fermentation takes place over 8 months. The wine ages for about 8 months and is bottled without fining or filtration and zero sulfur is added.

Rita and Rudolf Trossen decided to break with modern winemaking practices in 1978, when they converted their entire estate to Biodynamics. They have been crafting wonderful Mosel Valley Rieslings ever since. In 2010, encouraged by many of their sommelier clients, they began to delve into the world of natural winemaking with their Pur’us line of wines, which have no intervention whatsoever. These wines have zero additives, not even sulfur, and are unfined and unfiltered. There are some winemakers working organically in Germany, but the vast majority of winemakers in Germany are steadfast users of sulfur to stabilize and preserve their wines, making the Trossens real pioneers in their area. They allow their wines to sit on the lees for extended periods of time “until all biological processes have come to an end.” For us, the wines were the first German wines we ever tasted that made us sit up and notice something different was happening. The depth of character and expression Riesling can reach without additives is truly amazing.

The Trossen vineyards are full of slate, which resisted phylloxera completely, thus most of their vines are completely ungrafted and some approach 100 years old!