2016 | Weingut Egon Müller | Scharzhofberger Riesling Eiswein (Magnum)

Detailed Description

Beautifully clear and piquant, showing superbly precise and concentrated fruit (pineapple) aromas.

Reviews:

• Wine Advocate: The 2016 Scharzhofberger Eiswein (AP #7) is beautifully clear and piquant, showing superbly precise and concentrated fruit (pineapple) aromas. Lush, round and piquant on the palate, with precise and fine fruit and gorgeous salinity, this is a terribly long and complex Scharzhofeberger with a mineral and piquant finish that mimics lime and grapefruit flavors and breaking slate stones. In short, this is a picture-book Eiswein, the first since 2012, and it was marketed without auction.

• James Suckling: A relatively light ice wine for this producer, but very clean and pure (which isn’t always the case for this category). Great exotic fruit aromas including a whiff of durian. This also has a rather elegant interplay of sweetness and acidity without the sharp edges ice wine often has in its youth. Delicious now, and it probably will show its best during the next five years, even if it will keep for many more years.

Producer Information

Weingut Egon Müller is a renowned wine estate based just outside the village of Wiltingen in the Saar valley sub-region of the Mosel in Germany. It exclusively works with the Riesling grape, and is particularly known for its wines made from the exceptional Scharzhofberg vineyard southeast of Wiltingen. The current manager is Egon Müller IV, who studied his craft at the leading winemaking university at Geisenheim. The Egon Müller wines are produced at a range of ripeness levels, including Kabinett, Spätlese and Auslese, with Auslese Goldkapsel (literally “gold capsule”) made in the best years. If conditions allow, sweet Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese and Eiswein are also produced. The Scharzhofberg releases are among the most sought-after of all German wines and achieve some of Germany’s highest prices at auction. Despite the trend towards drier wines in the Rheinland, the Spätlese and Auslese tend to show plenty of residual sugar. Because the wines are not dry they cannot be labeled as Grosses Gewächs (a German wine title similar to Grand Cru), even though the vineyard is classified as such. All the wines need time to reach their peak and can age well. The Auslese can easily last half a century or more. A large section of 8.5 hectares (21 acres) on the grey shale slopes of the south-facing Scharzhofberg vineyard, behind the Scharzhof house and winery, forms the heart of the Egon Müller estate. This is widely held to be one of the great white wine vineyards in the world. There are also half a dozen smaller plots totalling no more than four hectares (10 acres), mostly a little further down-river on the southwest-facing banks of the horseshoe bend in the Saar river between Wiltingen and Kanzem. These belong to the Weingut Le Gallais in Wiltingen which was acquired by Egon III in 1954 (though half its vineyards are rented, they are not owned outright) and include the Kupp and Braune Kupp single vineyards.