2016 Haardt Muskateller

Pennyroyal, basil, peppermint, bay laurel and lemon zest on the nose anticipate this wine’s pungent and piquant yet cooling performance on a palpably dense yet lightly waxy palate. The superbly sustained finish remains generously juicy as well as invigoratingly pungent, piquant and incisive, while adding a saliva-liberating dose of marine mineral salts. I’m confident that this wine will give pleasure – to some of us Muskateller fans, anyway – for longer than a decade, but I placed a 10-year cap on my cellaring prognosis based on how long it is likely to remain the juicy, bracing sort of wine you might sip on its own as an aperitif. “The berries [of Muskateller] have to retain their spring and elasticity at picking,” observed Franzen, “otherwise you don’t get this combination of invigoration and juiciness.” Having applauded the VDP’s willingness to accede to a site-specific bottling from Scheurebe, I suspect – though Franzen did not directly confirm this – that the organization’s unwillingness to extend the same charity and bring comparable empirical evidence to bear on Muskateller is a prime reason why we don’t have a Bürgergarten bottling this vintage. But never mind; for decades there was only a single bottling of Müller-Catoir Muskateller; all of the grapes come from the Bürgergarten; and the present instantiation profoundly and delightfully perpetuates that proud tradition.