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Martin Müllen

“The big problem in 2017,” reported Martin Müllen, “was that one cluster was ripe and the next one not” – a legacy of the April frost and second growth – “so one had to be highly selective.” And even so, he added, “we waited a long time before beginning to pick, on October 6.” This unusually late start, combined with the fact that a Müllen harvest routinely requires at least three weeks (“I prefer four,” he noted, “but couldn’t take that long this year”) led to many wines of prominently advanced ripeness; yet there are also signature low-alcohol dry Kabinetts. “Perhaps in retrospect,” he reflected, “we ought to have done an earlier pass on the vineyards to cull botrytis before it spread further.” In the end, the number of sweet wines is as small as has informed any Müllen collection. Even so, Müllen didn’t execute his usual top dry wine – a "three-star" Hühnerberg Spätlese trocken. “I wanted to, but the wine from that parcel had other ideas,” he said, “and in the course of fermentation it became clear that it wanted to remain sweet.” In general, though, Müllen’s 2017s fermented in good order to legal dryness, though despite an early finish to their fermentative labors, they were still given the long stays in cask characteristic of Müllen’s approach.

The second of my two visits to taste Müllen’s 2017s – at the end of October 2018 – was the first occasion on which we were actively joined by his son Jonas, who had recently finished his studies at Geisenheim and whose first vintage to be out in the vineyards every day from early summer through autumn was 2017. “If anything, Jonas was even more ruthlessly selective at harvest than I would have been,” said his father with evident pride. I was not given an opportunity to taste a dry Trabener Würzgarten, and the multi-site dry cuvée that Müllen labels “Riesling Revival” was not produced from 2017. (For more about Müllen, his vineyards and his distinctive methodology, consult the introductions to my accounts of his vintage 2014 and 2015 wines.)

From Multifarious 2017 Mosels, Part 1: Winningen to Wehlen (Jan 2020) by David Schildknecht

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2017 Riesling Kröver Paradies Kabinett* trocken

Release Price: $28

Color: White

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Martin Müllen

2017 Riesling Kröver Paradies Kabinett* trocken

2017 Riesling Trabener Würzgarten Kabinett * trocken

2017 Riesling Trarbacher Hühnerberg Kabinett* trocken

2017 Kröver Paradies Spätlese trocken

2017 Kröver Kirchlay Spätlese* trocken

2017 Kröver Kirchlay Auslese trocken

2017 Kröver Letterlay Spätlese** trocken

2017 Kröver Steffensberg Spätlese** trocken

2017 Kröver Paradies Spätlese** trocken

2017 Riesling Trarbacher Hühnerberg Auslese trocken

2017 Riesling Trarbacher Hühnerberg Spätlese ** trocken

2017 Riesling Kröver Paradies Auslese

2017 Riesling Trarbacher Hühnerberg Spätlese

2017 Riesling Trarbacher Hühnerberg Auslese

2017 Riesling Kröver Letterlay Beerenauslese

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