2010 Haardt Riesling

Issuing from Mandelgarten and lighter soils in Burgergarten, Muller-Catoir's 2010 Haardter Riesling Kabinett trocken is scented with lemon grass, white peach and fresh lime. Piquant peach kernel and citrus rind subtly inflect the silken palate of this understated offering that comes off as even lighter than its label's -12.5% alcohol- inscription would suggest. Abundant juicy refreshment gains mouthwatering reinforcement from salinity while a suggestion of crushed stone underlies the persistent finish of a Riesling sure to satisfy for at least the next 4-5 years. With 2011, Martin Franzen celebrated his tenth harvest at Muller-Catoir. It's worth pausing to recall that Franzen took over in an extremely difficult situation: as successor to the justly legendary (still active) Hans-Gunter Schwarz whose highly acrimonious rupture with owner Heinrich Catoir had recently ended an until then lifelong friendship; in the immediate wake of an interim team that did not survive long enough to see-through even a single vintage from vine-pruning to market; and compelled to divide his time and attention in vintage 2002 with the winery in Baden to which he was at the time still contractually committed. Improbably, Franzen quickly brought quality back to that level which had for three decades made Muller-Catoir a Pfalz beacon, and his wines have reflected both continuity and subtle innovation, displaying refinement and clarity of expression equaled by few of their region. (To be sure, you'll read other very different accounts of Franzen's tenure - which is one reason I am reiterating mine.) The complexity and balance of residually sweet wines rendered at this estate remain unsurpassed anywhere, though there are fewer than ever of these, to the point where a couple of otherwise extremely knowledgeable colleagues of mine have written about Muller-Catoir as though their entire production were trocken. And indeed, vintage 2010 set a new (for me depressing) record given that the (as usual very long) Muller-Catoir line-up contained only three wines that weren't either trocken or nobly sweet. (Of the three, I tasted only one, as Franzen could not come up with even a single bottle of Scheurebe Spatlese, or Mussbacher Riesling Kabinett, the latter absent even from the estate's price list and - sigh - probably not purchased by any German national, or least-wise no "self-respecting" one). And as my reviews suggest, there has seldom if ever been a vintage in which it was more strikingly evident than in 2010 that - notwithstanding a history of rendering exemplary dry wines - the greatest excitement at this estate remains that generated by wines with residual sweetness. (Pradikat, incidentally, continues to be indicated - albeit in miniscule print - on the labels of nearly all dry Muller-Catoir wines, so I continue to include it in my descriptions, although in keeping with new VDP policies, the estate will very shortly need to follow-through on their repeatedly voiced intention to do away with those indications for other than residually sweet wines.) This was among those estate's worst-hit by May frost so that the 2011 crop here was tiny, which when combined with the circumstances of harvest led to a seriously abbreviated line-up of bottlings, including dry Rieslings of singular if slightly austere nature. "The moment chosen for picking was absolutely critical, and you didn't have a lot of room to play on either side of optimum" says Franzen - voicing an opinion of 2011 that you are likely to hear among German Riesling vintners only in the Pfalz and then from my no means all of them. "And," he adds,"there wasn't much potential for nobly sweet wine, precisely because things went so quickly and we had to concern ourselves with capturing the best possible dry wines. In Riesling, there just wasn't more in this vintage (i.e. in residually sweet wine) than Spatlese," whereas Rieslaner notoriously can desiccate and concentrate to upper-Pradikat must weights even in the relative absence of botrytis, and in this vintage proved to be Muller-Catoir's sole star-performer. It would have been nice in Franzen's tenth anniversary vintage for the collection to have overcome 2011's limitations in a big way across the board - there being a long and distinguished history of that happening in difficult vintages chez Muller-Catoir - but at least the two Rieslaner T.B.A.s represent vinous milestones. "Few, small bunches, with tiny berries" were an across-the-board phenomenon in 2010, observes Martin Franzen. He relates that acid levels - some of which he moderated via the double-salt method - were not only almost unprecedentedly high but also curiously stubborn even when the weather turned warm in late September. "And after the rain we had experienced," he opined, "the grapes had pretty much had it," so that his team picked most of them by mid-October. Franzen expressed relatively little concern about the high ratio of malic to tartaric, suggesting that the bad reputation of the former is mostly on account of guilt by association with low phenolic ripeness, which was not a problem at Muller-Catoir in 2010. Skin contact was minimal ("having selectively de-acidified, I didn't want to compound the effect," notes Franzen) and bottling occurred at the usual late spring juncture. "With the youthful 2010s," suggests Franzen - without my having posed a corresponding question to him, though it's implicit in my tasting notes - "there is often, let's say, a somewhat rustic aspect. But I am confident that they will achieve elegance. They're not developing along the reductive - oxidative line that we're used to but are instead struggling to find their elegance, very differently than in other years." Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300