1998 Scheurebe Haardter Mandelring Spätlese

"1998 was outstanding from all categories," says Heinrich Catoir, "from the simplest liter wine right up to Trockenbeerenauslese." I would have to characterize this as the best vintage ever at Muller-Catoir, and one that rapidly depleted my stock of superlatives. There is a newly found clarity and elegance here which the Catoir-Schwarz team achieves without sacrificing sheer extract. "As you've followed us," says Catoir, "you've noted certain changes. Thanks to the reputation we have acquired, it's been incumbent on us to produce even better wines, so as not to disappoint our customers or ourselves. In the past, we selected our very top wines on the basis of botrytis. In the last few years we've no longer worked so intently to capture botrytis, but rather to showcase perfectly healthy, highly ripe fruit. We're prepared to make many passes over a vineyard to achieve this. Astonishingly, we can more easily hire trained local pickers today than in the past, since so many other estates are converting to machine harvesting." I omit coverage of several very fine dry wines that will not make it to the U.S. market. (Terry Theise)