Müller-Catoir Bürgergarten Erste Lage Riesling 2019

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

In the spectrum of German Riesling, where Mosel signifies finesse and the Rhinehessen is all about fruit and bold flavour, Müller-Catoir’s wines effortlessly straddles this divide, combining delicate, precise flavour and vibrant, juicy fruit, yielding an elegant fine wine with great drinkability.

This wine comes from the renowned Bürgergarten vineyard on the lower slopes of the Haardt Mountains. The site is rated as Grosses Gewächs 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 (the ‘Im Breumel’), the lion’s share makes its way into this Erste Lage offering.

In terms of winemaking, the wine was naturally fermented and 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.

About Müller-Catoir

The Müller-Catoir winery has been a family-owned business since 1744. It is now in the ninth generation, owned and run by Phillip David Catoir with Martin Franzen as the viticulturalist and winemaker.

The winery holds iconic status in the Pfalz and became legendary during the ‘70s and ‘80s under former manager Hans-Günther Schwarz who, supported by the Catoir family, refused to industrialise the Estate despite the strong trend in that direction in Germany at that time. The wines were one of the few bastions of authenticity and quality in an ocean of mediocrity. Today, with star vigneron Martin Franzen at the helm, the quality has risen even higher.

Under the Mosel-born Franzen, this historic Estate has become known for producing some of Pfalz’s most ethereal and fine-boned wines: tightly packed, un-showy Riesling that can take years to uncoil. A far cry then, from the Pfalz’s upfront, stand-and-deliver norm. That said, without dialling down Catoir’s traditional mineral character, the wines here have been gradually evolving towards a more expressive, textural and intense style.

In the Vineyard

Müller-Catoir owns roughly 20 hectares of vines in and around the village of Haardt, in the hills outside Neustadt. The yellow sandstone that dominates here (significantly different to the red sandstone typically found in Pfalz) delivers a distinctive, smoky kind of minerality and more yellow-fruited wines.

The topsoils of Bürgergarten specifically are sandy and deep, with yellow sandstone bedrock below, a soil type that brings power, perfume and intense mineral freshness.

The viticultural philosophy at Müller-Catoir is a simple one: spend a lot of time in the vineyard, working to the rhythm of the seasons. Under Franzen organic and biodynamic practices have been implemented in the vineyards, as well as new pruning techniques like the Poussard-Guyot.

In the Winery

The wines are made exclusively from estate fruit and created in the Müller-Catoir style: highly refined, with notes of minerality, elegant and uncompromisingly unique. Following a selective harvest by hand, fruit undergoes a slow, natural fermentation with no SO2 until racking or bottling, then careful maturing in the cellar, waiting as long as possible before bottling.

This all results in wines of deep fruit, high extract, ripe acidity and powerful vineyard expression. Crucially, the more recently released wines are also more accessible when young, a revolution under Franzen that has been no mean feat.

Deutschsprachler! Check out the video below for an in depth look at the winegrowing methods employed at Müller-Catoir.

The 2019 Vintage at Müller-Catoir

After a very dry winter, the season started with a very early budding and with temperatures already up to 30 degrees Celsius at the end of March! A very cool May slowed down the development so that the flowering went on almost in the normal period until mid-June. “The dryness of the winter, however, haunted us throughout the summer,” reports technical director Martin Franzen.

Characteristic for the summer of 2019 were three heat waves, which lasted for three or four days at the end of June, July and August. They all were unusually hot, with temperatures around 40 degrees Celsius. “The first two heat waves did not cause any major problems for the vines, especially since the first three weeks of August were unusually cool,” Franzen said. “This explains the freshness and elegance of the 2019s.” The first three weeks in August “saved the acidity and slowed down the ripening process in a very positive way. However, the third heat wave at the end of August was not necessary. The Riesling suffered a little less than the Pinot varieties.”

The harvest started with summer temperatures on September 10 “with perfectly ripened Pinots.” By September 22, all grape varieties except the Riesling family were harvested. “Due to the dryness, ripening was a bit slow, so the announced change in weather with rain gave us hope. The fact that we then immediately entered autumn and the rain would not stop was not desired, though,” Franzen said. He stopped harvesting for four days in order to pick all of the Riesling grapes during the only dry phase—on September 28 and 29. The unstable weather continued, but “this was not a big problem for the remaining Rieslings and Scheuereben due to the lighter soils,” said Franzen. The main harvest ended very quickly on October 3. Noble sweet wines were again only possible with Rieslaner and still only under quite difficult conditions. With 51 hectoliters per hectare, the yields were on the normal/desired level in 2019, said Franzen.

Stephan Reinhardt, The Wine Advocate

Where in the World is Müller-Catoir?

The Müller-Catoir estate is nestled on the edge of the Palatinate located in Haardt, a tiny German wine district just outside the city of Neustadt, at the heart of the Pfalz wine region. The region is known for its high-quality Rieslings, which are typically complex and more full-bodied than those from other parts of Germany.

The German VDP has an excellent interactive map covering the wine growing regions of Germany. Click on the Map to go to the live version.