The 2004 Gimmeldinger Schlossel Rieslaner Beerenauslese smelled of peach and gooseberry jam augmented by black tea, honey and smoke. The palate impression was similarly Eszencia-like in its creamy, nearly gelatinous viscosity, ethereal high toned inner-mouth aromas, and apricot and peach preserve intensity. If you have to fall on your sword, what a way to go. This offers a rapier thrust of finishing fruit swathed in a thick creamy envelope. Peach jam, dark resinous honey, citrus rind, black tea, caramelized apricot, and complex, nameless esters reverberate in the hereafter. It was, I suppose, inevitable that Rieslaner would be tried out in the estate’s most famous vineyard, and the parcel is adjacent to the Aspen, so there is a regular breeze to accentuate this variety’s proclivity to spontaneously pucker. Since the arrival of young Mosel-born Martin Franzen at this great estate so long associated with the wisdom and artistry of Hans-Gunter Schwarz’s 36-year tenure as cellar master, I have been struck by a degree of qualitative continuity and stylistic affinity with the ancient regime that other commentators seem not to have noticed. In a very real sense, the legacy of Schwarz – “activism in the vines, minimalism in the cellar” – has seeped indelibly into the fabric of nearly every top winery in the Pfalz. How then could it be otherwise precisely at Mandelring #25? And although Franzen and a largely new team were forced, to a considerable extent, to rediscover the keys to these vines and sites, they are the same vines and sites so carefully tended, trained and conscientiously replanted over the past decades by the then team of Catoir and Schwarz. In 2004, Franzen has unlocked from them astonishingly numerous and improbably fine vinous treasures such as one has come to associate with the name “Muller-Catoir” in the nearly four decades since a very young Heinrich Catoir inherited this estate and decided to make a statement.Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300