Organic. Gutswein is the base classification in the VDP for wines blended from estate fruit. Müller-Catoir does not typically export this wine; instead, it bottles it in one-litre format to sell to local restaurants. Some years ago, we spied some in the winery and insisted on tasting it. After years of asking, we were finally delivered our first small parcel of this juicy offering in 2011.
Drawn from the 2022 vintage, this wine is a blend of Riesling (at least 85%) with lesser amounts of Rieslaner, Scheurebe and Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc). Even at this level, the fruit is hand-harvested, mainly from the estate’s valley-floor holdings, and as always, this offers excellent value. Crammed with pithy lime, rocky salinity and lovely white floral notes, it’s a fleshy one with surprising depth of flavour and texture balanced by whiz-bang vibrancy and mouthwatering structure. On Bibendum’s deliciousness scale, this wine scores order-another-bottle out of 10. 

Organic. Few German estates produce an entry-level Riesling of this depth and structure. It is made entirely from hand-harvested, estate-grown Riesling, cropped at an incredibly low 35 hl/ha to mitigate the younger-vine origins. The source vineyards are all on the sandstone slopes of the Haardt hills, Mussbach, Gimmeldingen and Haardt itself.

Cool and linear, with lovely palate tension between the texture and acidity, this wine again lives up to it’s billing as one of our portfolio’s all-star values. It’s pure and fragrant with vibrant stone fruit and citrus-pith flavour. There’s a hint of savoury spice and iodine on the long, buoyant finish.

Organic. This tremendous Riesling comes from the renowned Bürgergarten vineyard on the lower slopes of the Haardt Mountains. It’s a site rated as Grosses Gewächs (or Grand Cru) and was first planted over 700 years ago, making it one of the oldest vineyards in the Pfalz. When a vineyard survives this long, it usually tells you something. While Müller-Catoir does make a GG from a small parcel in this sloping vineyard (Im Breumel), the lion’s share—taken from the Gehren and Aspen micro-terroirs—makes its way into this Erste Lage (or first growth) offering.

The topsoil of Bürgergarten is sandy and deep, with yellow sandstone bedrock below. It’s a soil that brings power, perfume and intense mineral freshness. The wine fermented naturally and was raised in a mixture of steel tanks and five-year-old 600-litre halbstück ovals (25%) for 10 months. Franzen finds this combination—allied with extended lees aging—results in more expressive, less reductive wines that are more approachable on release.

It’s a stimulating old-vine Bürgergarten from a cool vintage, redolent of orange citrus, summer blossoms and citrus skin. A lick of leesy savouriness adds complexity while invigorating tension carries the silky, crystalline palate to a beautiful, grapefruit-drenched finish. Despite a cooler year, this radiates with the generosity of the terroir cut through with striking clarity; a GG, and a great one, in all but name.

Im Breumel is a historic walled section (a ‘clos’ in other words) within the Haardter Bürgergarten vineyard. Müller-Catoir’s legendary former winegrower, Hans-Günther Schwarz, always insisted this parcel was the most important single site of the Mittelhaardt (or central Pfalz). Today, it gives us Müller-Catoir’s only Grosses Gewächs bottling.

Exclusively owned by Müller-Catoir, this uppermost parcel of the Bürgergarten is protected by a sandstone wall that creates a warmer microclimate. The area, which faces towards the southeast, warms very quickly in the mornings and, due to its proximity to the forest, cools soon after sunset. The soil here is poorer than the lower section of Bürgergarten, consisting of pure mottled yellow sandstone gravel with a high ratio of decomposed stone. The fruit here is cropped at a very low 35 hl/ha. In most years, one-third of the wine ferments and matures in 1,000-litre oak vessels.

Expect a steady procession of flavours and structures building through the palate, anchored to tensile, nervy energy. When it gets going, the finish roars towards an extraordinarily long, complex and potent close. For those without the patience or inclination to wait, a decant and food will help this youthful siren sing.

Organic. Mandelgarten is a tear-shaped site on the northern border of the tiny Gimmeldingen village, next-door to Haardt. Widely regarded as the best vineyard of the southern Mittelhaardt, Mandelgarten sits on a red sandstone deposit with a deep water vein underneath, providing mineral nourishment to the vines. Müller-Catoir farms 1.5 hectares of this terroir, although much of it is planted to the Scheurebe variety. The vineyard is named after the almond trees that blossomed here in the Middle Ages.

Raised in stainless steel, the 2021 finished at 10% and from the first sip, it’s impossible not to be immediately drawn into this wine’s weave of florals, juicy ripe citrus and savoury salinity before a sprint down a scintillating path of minerality, elegant precision and length. It’s a more open, crunchy and filigreed style of Spätlese than this vineyard has offered up in recent years. Enjoy it while you can!

Rieslaner is a cross between Sylvaner and Riesling, developed in 1921. Despite being a lesser-known grape, it plays an important role in the history of this domaine. It was Hans-Günter Schwarz (the legendary cellar master who made the wines here from 1962 to 2002) who brought Rieslaner to Müller-Catoir and planted it in the Haardt’s Herzog vineyard. Schwarz made some fabled sweet wines from Herzog Rieslaner (which are nigh-on impossible to find), and since 2003, Franzen has enthusiastically taken up the torch. 

Rieslaner’s inclination to botrytis (even in dry years) while retaining high acidity makes it Müller-Catoir’s most reliable sweet wine variety. Seeing the success of the Rieslaner in Herzog, Müller-Catoir used mass-selection cuttings to plant in the Gimmeldinger Schlössel, a vineyard on poor sandstone lying at the foot of the Haardt Mountains. The results have been equally spectacular. The back-vintage wines have been re-issued from the domaine this year and will surely live up to their legendary billing.

Alcohol 6%; acidity 13.3 g/L; residual sugar 391.7 g/L.

Rieslaner is a cross between Sylvaner and Riesling, developed in 1921. Despite being a lesser-known grape, it plays an important role in the history of this domaine. It was Hans-Günter Schwarz (the legendary cellar master who made the wines here from 1962 to 2002) who brought Rieslaner to Müller-Catoir and planted it in the Haardt’s Herzog vineyard. Schwarz made some fabled sweet wines from Herzog Rieslaner (which are nigh-on impossible to find), and since 2003, Franzen has enthusiastically taken up the torch.

Rieslaner’s inclination to botrytis (even in dry years) while retaining high acidity makes it Müller-Catoir’s most reliable sweet wine variety. Seeing the success of the Rieslaner in Herzog, Müller-Catoir used mass-selection cuttings to plant in the Gimmeldinger Schlössel, a vineyard on poor sandstone lying at the foot of the Haardt Mountains. The results have been equally spectacular. The back-vintage wines have been re-issued from the domaine this year and will surely live up to their legendary billing.
Alcohol 6.5%; acidity 19.3 g/L; residual sugar 335.4 g/L.

Rieslaner is a cross between Sylvaner and Riesling, developed in 1921. Despite being a lesser-known grape, it plays an important role in the history of this domaine. It was Hans-Günter Schwarz (the legendary cellar master who made the wines here from 1962 to 2002) who brought Rieslaner to Müller-Catoir and planted it in the Haardt’s Herzog vineyard. Schwarz made some fabled sweet wines from Herzog Rieslaner (which are nigh-on impossible to find), and since 2003, Franzen has enthusiastically taken up the torch. 

Rieslaner’s inclination to botrytis (even in dry years) while retaining high acidity makes it Müller-Catoir’s most reliable sweet wine variety. Seeing the success of the Rieslaner in Herzog, Müller-Catoir used mass-selection cuttings to plant in the Gimmeldinger Schlössel, a vineyard on poor sandstone lying at the foot of the Haardt Mountains. The results have been equally spectacular. The back-vintage wines have been re-issued from the domaine this year and will surely live up to their legendary billing.

Organic. This is a special ‘Degree Oechsle’ bottling crafted from a selection of extremely dried-out grapes. Müller-Catoir recommends drinking this wine at a temperature of around 10  to 12°C from a large red wine glass, to tease out the wine’s extraordinary aromatic complexity.

Alcohol 6%; acidity 12.3 g/L; residual sugar 443.6 g/L.

Rieslaner is a cross between Sylvaner and Riesling, developed in 1921. Despite being a lesser-known grape, it plays an important role in the history of this domaine. It was Hans-Günter Schwarz (the legendary cellar master who made the wines here from 1962 to 2002) who brought Rieslaner to Müller-Catoir and planted it in the Haardt’s Herzog vineyard. Schwarz made some fabled sweet wines from Herzog Rieslaner (which are nigh-on impossible to find), and since 2003, Franzen has enthusiastically taken up the torch. 

Rieslaner’s inclination to botrytis (even in dry years) while retaining high acidity makes it Müller-Catoir’s most reliable sweet wine variety. Seeing the success of the Rieslaner in Herzog, Müller-Catoir used mass-selection cuttings to plant in the Gimmeldinger Schlössel, a vineyard on poor sandstone lying at the foot of the Haardt Mountains. The results have been equally spectacular. The back-vintage wines have been re-issued from the domaine this year and will surely live up to their legendary billing.

Alcohol 6%; acidity 19 g/L; residual sugar 400 g/L.