How lies the land at Müller-Catoir these days? To clarify my biases, I am friendly to the domain. I imported them for many years. And to defend my biases, they formed because the wines are always good and often superb, and I have learned to expect it to continue. So whether that is a “bias” or just a reasonable expectation based on decades of empirical input….well, you tell me. From the early 60s until 2002 the estate was based on a tandem, between the then-proprietor Hei

Once in a while, even in my current dotage, I get invited to something. This time it was a tasting of grower-Champagnes in which four small and ostensibly “competing” distributors united to fly the flag for farmer fizz. It was odd to taste the wines without concerning myself with their costs. It was also odd, but familiar, to do the trade-tasting thing after many years of being able to immerse myself in the samples I receive. This time it was superficial, as these things ha

It started with an email from Jancis Robinson. I was one of a bevy of wine folk she surveyed to see if we had too much wine in our cellars. I was tempted to reply “Doesn’t everyone have too much wine in the cellar?” (Aside – most of us do.) But my reply had a nuance. I have too much of the kind of wine I don’t reach for very often any more, and not enough of the wines I reach for constantly. That is because my preferences have changed. I don’t see how a person can drink wine

They asked what to send, told me there was neither Sauvignon Blanc nor Scheurebe in the ’24 vintage, which made it simpler. I responded to emphasize the dry and feinherb wines, and fill the rest of the case with whatever they were happiest with. I know there’s some derision about “tweezer-food” (but how else do you handle microgreens among other things) because it’s somehow supposed to be twee and bougie, but I enjoy precision and clarity, and I enjoy Hexamer the way I enjo

This may be a bittersweet few days of tasting, as Gunter Künstler has changed his American importer, and it’s an open question whether and how I might continue to receive samples. It remains to be seen. But I’m more confident that Gunter and I will stay friends, as he is a lovely and remarkable soul with whom I’ll make every effort to keep in touch and maintain our accord. As far as Riesling goes, and much as I hesitate to apply singular superlatives, I think Künstler is th

An odd range in some ways, omitting the best among the GGs in favor of three Chardonnays and an equally odd group of the 1er Crus. The estate, like many in the Deidesheim-Wachenheim nexus, is capacious. Only Forst has seemed to preserve the classic “small-grower” culture. But let’s see about those Chards; there must have been a reason they were included. But first, two of the red GGs. There’s an entire range of nine red wines, mostly but not exclusively Pinot Noir, among wh

There was talk recently about whether the term “fine wine” had about it a stench of exclusivity, as though the very wines themselves wished you to know you weren’t cultured enough to suss their esoteric gifts. It’s a symptom – yet another symptom – of the current wine malaise, in which all of us are casting about feverishly trying to figure out how to make wine enticing again. Anything smacking of <ulp> connoisseurship is clearly infra dig, at least for persons who do not d

I have a case of samples, eight dry wines and four “sweet” wines. All Rieslings, though I do miss the Pinot Blanc. This is a grower of special consequence in my view, as opposed to just-another-excellent estate. Coincidentally, I’m tasting these yet again when our backyard crabapple tree is a day or two from blooming. It isn’t on purpose, but sems to be a sort of kismet I’m willing to believe isn’t random. As my half-sister Rhonda likes to say, “Coincidence is how God pres

A friend arrived for dinner bearing two wines he wanted me to taste blind. He said he was curious to know what I’d think of them, which told me these were not just random wines, but that they were noteworthy in some way. One was white, the other red. The white wine first struck me as an ambitious Aligoté. It was coarse and disjointed; if it were a car it would have had rattles and dings. I couldn’t guess where it was from. It had no particular signature. I drank it again

If the best idea is held in the tenderest hand, these Champagnes couldn’t possibly be more convincing. I was reading a catalogue for a retreat center offering various wellness/vedic/meditation/spirituality stuff, and at the end they printed a letter from a “satisfied customer” that gave me a feeling adjacent to an ice cream headache. The luckless author of said document made reference to “walking mindfully” or some such thing. I was surprised, because I couldn’t fathom how