It happens my tasting schedule is all torn up this coming week, so I decided to seize a couple open days and start by tasting the three reds, the Sekt, the Pinot Blancs, and the Rosé. When time allows I’ll start again with, Riesling, and the “miracle varieties” Scheurebe, Muscat and Rieslaner. Other than segregating the sweet wines, I’ll list them as I tasted them.
I learned something about myself while tasting the three reds. I’m not sure it’s something attractive, but you decide.
If I had tasted the last wine alone, knowing only that it was “modern German Pinot Noir,” I’d have thought it affirmed Germany’s rightful place as a wonderful source for (relatively) affordable PN, and one that delivers the experience we generally hope to find with Old World examples. I would have recognized it, adored it, and praised it accordingly.
The ”problem” (which may be mine alone) is that it followed a wine of such wonderful idiosyncratic personality that a wine that was “merely” outstanding drew too close to anonymity. This is, not to put too fine a point on it, absurd. No wine as good as that one can justifiably be called anonymous. Except – it had the ill fortune to follow something superbly unusual, in which situation it felt superbly usual, and I’d been seduced by the outlandish. I felt a sort of letdown, all because I recognized what kind of wine this last wine was, and I’d been blasted into amazement by the singular experience of its predecessor.
So that’s what happened. If you care enough about my “reviews” to parse them for subtexts, I’m here to help.
Cellarmaster Martin Franzen agreed with my opinion that his PN was soaring ahead in quality and has to be counted among the regions’ best. “We do seem to reach a new level each year,” he says, “Yet we’re still able to maintain the basic style of Müller-Catoir.”
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