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Dry. Organic. Single site. This terrific 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 called I’m Breumel, the lion’s share—culled from the Gehren and Apen micro terroirs—makes its way into this Erste Lage (or classified first growth) offering.
The topsoils of the Bürgergarten are sandy and deep with yellow sandstone bedrock below. It’s a soil that brings power, perfume and intense mineral freshness. In terms of winemaking, the wine is naturally fermented and raised in a mixture of steel tanks and five-year-old 600-litre Halbstück ovals (25%) for ten months. Franzen is finding this combination, allied with more extended lees aging, results in more expressive, less reductive wines that are more approachable on release. As you would expect from such a site in a great vintage, this is a superlative wine that is the very definition of classicism and of this terroir.
Combining lemon pith and white peach together with hints of cayenne pepper and a stony-smoky mineral quality, this powerhouse is woven together with mouth-puckering acidity: it radiates with the generosity of the vintage cut through with stunning clarity. In a word, magnificent.