White Wine

Ripe apple and pear are accompanied on the nose by a greenhouse-like evocation of flowers and foliage that’s highly characteristic of Molitor 2018s. The midpalate is buoyant, caressingly creamy and lusciously fruity. Seed piquancy lends a welcome, stimulating modicum of counterpoint on a generously juicy, stone-kissing finish.

From the uppermost of Hühnerberg’s three broad terraces, this one-star Spätlese leads delightfully with ripe white peach and mirabelle garlanded in diverse flowers, including the orange blossoms that Müllen considers typical of wines from that terrace. The delicate, tender, polished midpalate adds a hint of raw almond, leading to a lusciously lingering finish admirably transparent to shimmering wet stone as well as mouthwateringly mingled with mineral salts. Here’s one Müllen 2018 that I don’t have any worries about recommending for extended cellaring. Amusingly, he says it is one of several wines that he wanted to go dry – but I’m happy that it had other ideas. The situation was actually unusual, as Müllen related: “By late February or early March it seemed that this just didn’t want to ferment any further. But I thought, maybe if I just give it some time… So it lay nearly five months on the lees, naturally without SO2, but it never budged. And when I detected a slight hint of oxidation in the wine as sampled from the top of the cask, I knew which way its full contents were headed and that it was time to bottle.” Why award this wine just a single star? I can only conclude that Müllen doesn’t quite share my high opinion of it.

As usual, Molitor’s exclusively small-barrel-raised “three-star” Pinot Blanc introduces some overt notes of oak on the nose and slight stiffening and drying to this variety’s usual engaging combination of textural creaminess with refreshment. But it still harbors plenty of interest. Musky suggestions of narcissus mingle with scents of corn shoots, lime peel and bruised apple skin. Fuller than its two ostensibly lesser counterparts but by no means heavy, this offers a cooling midpalate suggestion of mint-laced apple and lime sorbet, leading to a lingering if slightly woody finish enhanced by saliva-inducing salinity.