Müller-Catoir

Naturally it’s very different now. If things had been the same, or even similar, and if the wines had been all that they were, I would have told you, even if I thought you’d doubt me. There is a transition at Müller-Catoir and it is the foggiest point, right now, and hard to see the horizon from here. The two gentlemen I was introduced to last year by Hans-Günter Schwarz as his hand-groomed successors are both gone. (Both are at Messmer, interestingly enough; one ended up there via a stint at Lingenfelder.) In their place is about the most likeable human being you could ever meet. Martin Franzen arrives from Baden Baden’s Nägelsförst estate (and from Schlossgut Diel before that) with big shoes to fill. Yet with wicked wisdom, he declines to fill them, but instead sets about staking his own claims. Meanwhile, the administration of the winery is shared between Heinrich Catoir, who seems willing to cede more of it to his son Phillip, an architect by trade.  Schwarz’s name is not spoken, which of course means it is shouted continually, between each word and breath. It is all somewhat obscure to American eyes, accustomed as we are to plain dealing and open speaking. Franzen – whose hair you want to tousle – radiates affability and competence. He claimed (at my prompting) to have established his regime 99% of the way. “We only have a few refinements, a few things to further perfect,” he said. Catoir smiled approvingly. Franzen likes extended lees-contact, ultra-reductive vinification, and when he says “dry” he means dry. What the Germans now call “modern-Trocken” i.e. up to the legal limit of 9g.l. residual sugar is not his style.

I am very curious to follow Martin Franzen’s progress, because I think he’s yet to find his true stride here. I’m really cheering for him `cause he’s such a great guy. I will continue to sniff the air for miracles. This is a winery in which virtually every wine is a masterpiece. I am trying to confine my offering to only those wines most useful to you. I leave a lot of gems behind. Go ahead, pull a cork and get turned on by wine again! Maybe you’ll feel as I do: people have to know these wines, to see the possibilities of wine!

•Vineyard area: 20 hectares
•Annual production: 11,250 cases
•Top sites: Haardter Bürgergarten and Herzog, Gimmeldinger Mandelgarten, Mussbacher Eselshaut
•Soil types: Loamy gravel, clay
•Grape varieties: 58% Riesling, 13% Rieslaner, 9% Scheurebe, 8% Weissburgunder, 4% Muskateller, 3% Grauburgunder and Spätburgunder, 2% other varieties