Overview
Auf der Rausch is a distinct old plot of 1.96 hectares inside the Saarburger Rausch, the VDP.GROSSE LAGE on the steep slope directly behind the town of Saarburg on the Saar. It is not a synonym or label variant of the Rausch as a whole: Weingut Forstmeister Geltz-Zilliken, the site's principal owner, describes it as an old parcel within the Grosse Lage that is set apart by a particularly high share of diabase in the soil, and since the 2018 vintage the estate has drawn its dry flagship, the Saarburg Auf der Rausch Riesling Grosses Gewächs, from this plot alone. The parcel name is on labels solely through Zilliken's bottling.
Terroir & Position
The Saarburger Rausch covers about 26 hectares facing south to southeast, turning slightly into a side valley of the Saar, with gradients from roughly 35 to 75 percent between about 160 and 295 meters of elevation. Its geological signature, unusual for the Saar, is the combination of fine-layered grey Devonian slate with diabase, a volcanic igneous rock; Zilliken notes that old Riesling vines root up to 10 meters deep in this rock. The Auf der Rausch plot concentrates the diabase element: the estate singles it out as the parcel with the highest diabase content, which is the stated reason for bottling it separately.
Producers
Zilliken (Forstmeister Geltz-Zilliken), run by Dorothee Zilliken with her father Hanno Zilliken, farms 11 of its 13 hectares within the Rausch (the remainder lies in Ockfener Bockstein) and is the vineyard's defining producer across the full sweep of styles from dry Grosses Gewächs to Kabinett, Spätlese and Auslese. The Auf der Rausch GG is hand-harvested from estate fruit and matured about 18 months in neutral large oak casks; its published style markers are smoke, wet slate and dried herbs with moderate alcohol (11 percent in 2018). Markus Molitor also bottles Riesling from the Saarburger Rausch, though not under the Auf der Rausch parcel name.
What to Know
Read the hierarchy on a Zilliken label this way: Rausch is the Grosse Lage and appears on the Prädikat wines; Auf der Rausch is the named 1.96 hectare parcel reserved for the Grosses Gewächs, first released from the 2018 vintage. The estate also bottles a separate "Diabas" Riesling whose name points to the same volcanic rock. For trade purposes the distinction is between site (Rausch) and parcel (Auf der Rausch), with the parcel wine being the estate's dry statement wine.