Leo Sommer Handwerk Riesling 2021

Excerpt of notes written by Ben Stroup, from one of our wine clubs: a natural Riesling that comes from a winery called Sommer in Burgenland, on the western shores of the Neusiedlersee. It’s a little edgy, made in a slightly wild style, fermented in open foudres and aged in a mixture of barrels and concrete eggs. The Sommer estate is now led by a son, Leo, who's opened the winery up to fancy new old things like concrete eggs. Modeled on Georgian Qvevri, the archaic ceramic ur-barrel, these eggs are a fun way for winemakers to dip into pre-industrial traditions of winemaking, without scrapping their entire winery set-up. Unlike stainless steel, concrete eggs are porous, allowing for oxygenation, and unlike oak barrels, concrete eggs are totally neutral—this makes eggs like these very helpful to winemakers who want to make something that has the lively brightness of a wine aged in stainless steel along with the texture and body of something aged in oak.

This wine from Sommer is texturally present...while preserving the delicate citrus on the palate. On the nose, it presents more of the honey and dew-dappled meadows thing, but it's not too precious. It's a nice alternative to German Riesling, a little more relaxed, give a wine a little more elbow room and you never know what will happen.