2020 Muller-Catoir Burgergarten Riesling, Pfalz

Deep stone-fruit and citrus aromas with some blossom notes. Stunning balance of ripe yet finely nuanced fruit and elegant acidity that then tightens to a long and pointed mineral finish that takes your breath away.

95 points Stuart Pigott jamessuckling.com

Organic. 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 (Im Breumel), the lion’s share—taken from the Gehren and Aspen micro-terroirs—makes its way into this Erste Lage (or first growth) offering.

The topsoil of Bürgergarten is 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 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.

As expected, the Bürgergarten shows more orderly restraint than its neighbour Herrenletten, but only just. It remains, however, a potent Riesling marked by dense, compact fruit and phenolic tension, with a crest of beautiful crystalline acidity driving the wine to a striking finish. It radiates with the generosity of the vintage, cut through with stunning clarity: a GG in all but name.