Pineapple in syrup and salted caramel dominate the Muller-Catoir 2009 Gimmeldinger Schlossel Rieslaner Beerenauslese, whose dramatically buttery texture is uncannily allied to bright, juicy refreshment of fresh pineapple and lemon, while fresh ginger, radish, black tea, and white pepper lend a seemingly indelible tactile tenacity to a finish both confectionary and exhilaratingly refreshing. The ability to at once sooth and sharply invigorate sums up this wine’s remarkable, paradoxical gifts. Arguably, its Spatlese and Auslese counterparts from the Herzog are more refined, and there is a youthful overtone of yeastiness that needs to be integrated, but already the alliance among seemingly contradictory elements here points toward an almost magical endowment. Expect this to be riveting enough to follow for at least the next three decades. “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

Dried apricots and herbal-grassy-peapod notes vie on the nose, but the flavors are intensely sweet and apricotty, with the botrytis character covering whatever other notes might be lurking underneath.——J.C.(6/1/2009)—— 92

The 2004 Gimmeldinger Schlossel Rieslaner Beerenauslese smelled of peach and gooseberry jam augmented by black tea, honey and smoke. The palate impression was similarly Eszencia-like in its creamy, nearly gelatinous viscosity, ethereal high toned inner-mouth aromas, and apricot and peach preserve intensity. If you have to fall on your sword, what a way to go. This offers a rapier thrust of finishing fruit swathed in a thick creamy envelope. Peach jam, dark resinous honey, citrus rind, black tea, caramelized apricot, and complex, nameless esters reverberate in the hereafter. It was, I suppose, inevitable that Rieslaner would be tried out in the estate’s most famous vineyard, and the parcel is adjacent to the Aspen, so there is a regular breeze to accentuate this variety’s proclivity to spontaneously pucker. 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