Among the most effusively aromatic such bottlings in this estate’s history – and that’s saying something! – Muller-Catoir’s 2009 Haardter Mandelring Scheurebe Spatlese leads with pink grapefruit, mint, pineapple, nectarine, and a hint of passion fruit. This is also one of the lightest, creamiest, and most overtly sweet exercises in Scheurebe ripeness I have witnessed, and for all of its delicacy, the overall effect is almost syrup-like, as well as seductively soothing and lusciously lingering. This behaves as though it were trying – quite successfully – to compensate for the Auslese that the estate elected not to attempt this year. I expect it will delight for at least the next 20 years, and indeed after a decade or so I would anticipate a more balanced impression of sweetness as well as enhanced complexity. (I suspect that importer Terry Theise might be the only other wine lover with my accumulated experience in aging Scheurebe from Muller-Catoir.)“Despite sporadic rain at harvest time,” notes Martin Franzen about the 2009 harvest, “cool weather kept botrytis completely at bay. Frankly,” he adds, “it was hard to make disappointing wine with raw materials of this caliber.” But it was also impossible to achieve nobly sweet results save from Rieslaner, with its notorious penchant for spontaneous desiccation even in the absence of botrytis. This is the first vintage, incidentally, for which this estate has claimed organic bona fides, and Franzen – even if predictably – claims to find additional depth in his wines thanks to that conversion. (Not that this estate has ever been anything but entirely circumspect in any use of herbicides or pesticides.)Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300

The 2004 Haardter Mandelring Scheurebe Spatlese smells of bergamot, cassis, and candied mint and comes onto the palate with so much sweetness and low-toned richness as to suggest mint chocolate. Pure and rich, with caramelized peach and candied herbal concentrate character, this tastes very sweet even coming after an Eiswein, and going back to it in a subsequent context only drove home the fact that it is pushing the acceptable limit in that department. The finish gushes forth an impressive font of candied fruits and herbal essences. While it seems soft by the standards of the vintage, it will take time for this much sweetness to back off. So I would suggest monitoring it again in 6 or 8 years. Since the arrival of young Mosel-born Martin Franzen at this great estate so long associated with the wisdom and artistry of Hans-Gunter Schwarz’s 36-year tenure as cellar master, I have been struck by a degree of qualitative continuity and stylistic affinity with the ancient regime that other commentators seem not to have noticed. In a very real sense, the legacy of Schwarz – “activism in the vines, minimalism in the cellar” – has seeped indelibly into the fabric of nearly every top winery in the Pfalz. How then could it be otherwise precisely at Mandelring #25? And although Franzen and a largely new team were forced, to a considerable extent, to rediscover the keys to these vines and sites, they are the same vines and sites so carefully tended, trained and conscientiously replanted over the past decades by the then team of Catoir and Schwarz. In 2004, Franzen has unlocked from them astonishingly numerous and improbably fine vinous treasures such as one has come to associate with the name “Muller-Catoir” in the nearly four decades since a very young Heinrich Catoir inherited this estate and decided to make a statement.Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300