2018 Scheurebe Haardter Mandelring Spätlese

“I’ve never experienced such rapid vine growth as in the late spring and early summer of 2018,” noted Franzen. “In contrast with 2017, there was some drought stress during the summer, but in the end the harvest was much more relaxed.” Franzen is of the opinion that prolonging the 2018 harvest paid significant phenolic dividends but acknowledged that one had to take care to capture fruit while it could still express freshness. “All of the Riesling vines were picked over twice, and in most instances three times,” he reported, and that was over and above “pre-harvest” culling that informed a liter bottling I did not taste. The differences in 2018 from one Riesling to another certainly testify to significant shifts in flavor over time. Dry Riesling at every quality level is liable to show the influence of wood (though, fortunately, never overtly), since beginning with vintage 2016 not just Stückfässer but also (600-liter) Halbstückfässer have been introduced and cycled through the cellar. That development reflects a trend among Pfalz VDP members toward more and younger wood. And it means wines slightly less reductive than those for which Müller-Catoir has heretofore been known.

As Franzen is quick to point out, the heat and drought of 2018 were not ideal for Scheurebe. He’s glad in view of Müller-Catoir’s large share of this variety, much of it on relatively steep, terraced sites, that the subject, of possible future irrigation along their stretch of the Mittelhaardt, is at least being seriously discussed. Rieslaner, at least, as reflected in must weight and acidity, seemed to slough off the effects of drought, and informed an annual trifecta of Auslese, Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese. Apropos of Rieslaner, the estate’s few remaining old vines in the Gimmeldinger Schlössel gave their last in 2018, but in such small volume that it was amalgamated into the three Haardter Herzog bottlings. That parcel has been turned over to more Riesling. “It’s really gotten too warm there for optimal Rieslaner,” explained Franzen, citing especially the precariously early flowering. As usual, I did not assess quite all of the wines that this estate produced from 2018, and, in particular – as often happens – the Pinot Blancs. “We performed a really radical green harvest on Weissburgunder in 2018 to try to compensate for its high yields and huge clusters, then declassified some of the results,” explained Franzen, thereby suggesting why he chose not to show them to me.

I have written a bit (in introducing the Christmann vintage 2017 collection) about the project of restoring the once-renowned Neustadter Vogelsang vineyards that was embarked on in 2017 by the Müller-Catoir and Christmann estates. I’ll go into further detail soon, now that I have explored the site in some detail with Sophie Christmann and Martin Franzen. But, I review here a wine from the already extant Pinot Noir parcel included in Müller-Catoir’s share of this site just south of Haardt and high above the city of Neustadt; nor is that the only Müller-Catoir Pinot Noir I recently had a chance to taste. Long-time cellarmaster Hans-Günther Schwarz introduced Pinot Noir to the estate with a 1988 (of which I still have one bottle) that was raised in large Pfalz oak cask and intentionally shielded from undergoing malolactic transformation. The wine was certainly distinctive – and it was very much Schwarz’s intention that it be unlike other Pinots – but that project did not last for very many vintages. In the Franzen era, Pinot Noir kept such a low profile that its existence scarcely registered with me and none was presented me to taste until now. The greater significance that Pinot Noir is due to take on at this estate is also suggested by recent land swaps, having resulted in the acquisition of a parcel in Mussbach, a commune where Müller-Catoir’s white grape holdings have declined. (For much more about Müller-Catoir, including this estate’s distinguished and, at one recent point, tumultuous history, consult the introduction to my account of its 2014s.)