The 2015 Rieslaner Trockenbeerenauslese Haardter Herzog is sourced from overripe grapes and displays a very clear and aromatic bouquet of stewed peaches and toasted apples. Oily textured, so very dense and concentrated, it has a grippy seed flavor and is almost an elixir of Rieslaner. This is sweet, salty and very rich, with a great grip of the seeds and tannins. An impressive Rieslaner, but again very, very sweet. 6.5% alcohol.

Gold to amber-colored, the 2014 Haardter Herzog Rieslaner Trockenbeerenauslese shows a very clear, precise, highly intense, concentrated, spicy and slightly smoky bouquet with black bread, honey and cooked peach aromas along with oriental spices, Black Forest speck flavors, great finesse and complexity. Highly elegant, vivacious and nobly sweet on the palate, this is a superbly balanced and remarkably delicate, finesse-full TBA of great elegance that will age for decades. This is doubtlessly one of the most beautiful Rieslaner TBAs I have ever tasted.

Orange in color and highly viscous, the 2013 Haardter Herzog Rieslaner Trockenbeerenauslese displays a very clear, intense and concentrated bouquet of ripe, stewed and partly dried peaches and apricots along with spicy and vegetal flavors and notes of white and black chocolate, dried apricots, pistachio and chutney. Rich, intense and very concentrated on the palate, this velvety textured TBA is very sweet and piquant but also very elegant and stunningly precise in its long and aromatic fruit. Bottled with 6.5% alcohol, this viscous but lively TBA has great tension and energy and should be great for more than 30 years. (375ml bottles)

Deep copper or light bronze in color,. Muller-Catoir's 2010 Haardter Herzog Rieslaner Trockenbeerenauslese reflects one of those rare occasions when this grape has become heavily botrytized as opposed to spontaneously desiccated. Creamy in feel and almost gelatinously thick, it also resembles an Esszencia in its juxtaposition of apricot preserves with fresh lemon and its almost magical weightlessness, energy, and discord-free standoff of around 300 grams of residual sugar and an almost ludicrous and frightening 22.8 grams acidity. Pungently smoky evocations of botrytis waft throughout; and a Rieslaner-like flavor of glazed pineapple joins in on a finish of rapier length, and sharp penetration. As if all this weren't enough, there is a saliva-inducing salinity there that won-t quit. I debated how many points to deduct for the fact that this left my teeth feeling rubbery, but that peculiar impression in no way put me off from craving the next sip! Plan on following this for three or four decades, those of you young enough! And if you're wondering what became of the Gimmeldinger Schlossel Rieslaner, it was all harvested at T.B.A., but whereas this Herzog finished fermenting in March (already late by estate standards), its sibling had not yet legally become wine as of last September. With 2011, Martin Franzen celebrated his tenth harvest at Muller-Catoir. It's worth pausing to recall that Franzen took over in an extremely difficult situation: as successor to the justly legendary (still active) Hans-Gunter Schwarz whose highly acrimonious rupture with owner Heinrich Catoir had recently ended an until then lifelong friendship; in the immediate wake of an interim team that did not survive long enough to see-through even a single vintage from vine-pruning to market; and compelled to divide his time and attention in vintage 2002 with the winery in Baden to which he was at the time still contractually committed. Improbably, Franzen quickly brought quality back to that level which had for three decades made Muller-Catoir a Pfalz beacon, and his wines have reflected both continuity and subtle innovation, displaying refinement and clarity of expression equaled by few of their region. (To be sure, you'll read other very different accounts of Franzen's tenure - which is one reason I am reiterating mine.) The complexity and balance of residually sweet wines rendered at this estate remain unsurpassed anywhere, though there are fewer than ever of these, to the point where a couple of otherwise extremely knowledgeable colleagues of mine have written about Muller-Catoir as though their entire production were trocken. And indeed, vintage 2010 set a new (for me depressing) record given that the (as usual very long) Muller-Catoir line-up contained only three wines that weren't either trocken or nobly sweet. (Of the three, I tasted only one, as Franzen could not come up with even a single bottle of Scheurebe Spatlese, or Mussbacher Riesling Kabinett, the latter absent even from the estate's price list and - sigh - probably not purchased by any German national, or least-wise no "self-respecting" one). And as my reviews suggest, there has seldom if ever been a vintage in which it was more strikingly evident than in 2010 that - notwithstanding a history of rendering exemplary dry wines - the greatest excitement at this estate remains that generated by wines with residual sweetness. (Pradikat, incidentally, continues to be indicated - albeit in miniscule print - on the labels of nearly all dry Muller-Catoir wines, so I continue to include it in my descriptions, although in keeping with new VDP policies, the estate will very shortly need to follow-through on their repeatedly voiced intention to do away with those indications for other than residually sweet wines.) This was among those estate's worst-hit by May frost so that the 2011 crop here was tiny, which when combined with the circumstances of harvest led to a seriously abbreviated line-up of bot

Muller-Catoir’s 2008 Haardter Herzog Rieslaner Trockenbeerenauslese is a masterpiece written in an entirely different key from their similarly awesome and embryonic Schlossel T.B.A. This blasts from the glass like a gale of salty, alkaline sea breeze, along with pungent scents of spruce resin, dried apricot, and white pepper. Almost gelatinous in texture and shot through with tooth-threatening fresh lemon – yet, for all that, with an alluring suggestion of creaminess – it makes a pure, penetrating, rapier bee-line for your tonsils. With even less overt sweetness than the corresponding Schlossel, the finish is positively implacable, searing in brightness, and accompanied by an astonishingly intense sense of saline minerality for a nobly sweet elixir. It might leave you licking your wounds, not your lips! Plan on following some for three or more decades, provided you’re young enough, brave enough, and wealthy enough. You just had to be patient, said Martin Franzen about the 2008 harvest, but then once the grapes were ready, things went at a pretty good clip. We didn’t attempt to pick on into November. He volunteered a characterization of the wines as, incredibly playful and vibratory, which both amused and comforted me, seeing how often I had myself by then used those metaphors to describe some of the best of them. The recent evolution of this estate under Franzen’s direction – about which I have written extensively in issue 185 and elsewhere – continues on an exciting trajectory, and in retrospect I must say that with the possible exception of the two vintages of awkward transition immediately following the departure of long-time director Hans-Gunter Schwarz, at no point since I began tasting the wines of Muller-Catoir in the early ‘80s has this estate slipped from the apex of the Pfalz – indeed, of its nation’s – viticultural pecking order. Following current German fashion, Muller-Catoir now renders a Sauvignon Blanc, but I forgot to ask to taste its current installment, after having missed out on the inaugural rendition due to ignorance. With Pinot Blanc, though, Muller-Catoir is on solid ground, this grape’s virtues having even been enshrined in the Pfalz realization of Grosses Gewachs, and the estate’s history of success with it being long and illustrious. Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300