The Curious Case of Martin Muellen's Pricing on One of the Best Wine's He's Ever Made (Under $30)

 2019 Martin Muellen Krover Letterlay Spatlese Feinherb***
 - Some of the Best Fruit Martin Has Ever Made
 - I Gave This 9.7 on Delectable
 - One of My Top Scoring Muellen's Ever
 - A 30 Year Wine
 - $27.99 Case Pricing
 - Huge Tropical Nose 
 - Apricot, Peach Pit
 - Superb Wafting Minerality and Spices 
 - Honey and Tree Bark
 - Smells so Deep 
 - Bee Pollen
 - Slate and Sick Minerals
 - So Aromatic and Provocative
 - Almost Endless on the Palate 
 - Preposterous Core of Apricot and Peach Fruit
 - Huge Concentration and Such Finesse
 - Superb Finish and Balance
 - Unreal Purity and Length

 - A Miracle Wine That Should Cost $60+ Even in Germany

Curious Pricing

So most Muellen fans know that Martin lets nature decide which wines he is going to make each year. If the grapes are best for Auslese, he makes Auslese. If they are best for Spatlese Trocken, he makes Spatlese Trocken. If you ever want to retire and make a lot of money, move to Traben-Trarbach and become Martin's label maker. His labels change almost every year and he has a lot of them (they are also quite beautiful and I'd imagine pretty expensive).

It can be a bit challenging for us, to be honest. Some years we get almost all sweet wines and
very few trockens, Some years, it's the reverse. But because Martin never "forces" a wine, not even a little bit, they are always at least incredibly good.

So today's wine has 3 stars. Muellen fans know that he reserves the 3 stars for the best wines he makes. It is not a vineyard designation or a mutli year label. He tastes the wine and if it gets 3 stars, then it gets 3 stars. If for some reason he's not totally in love with a wine from one of his top vineyards, no stars. I've had wines of his I gave very high scores to that got no stars.

So here's the curious thing - you'd think that a wine like today's that has some of the best fruit Martin has produced this decade would be like $60. But it doesn't. Why? Well - I really don't know. I'd suspect that 1) it's not from his most famous vineyard (Huhnerberg) and 2) it's a feinherb and feinherbs just cost less money.

So basically you are getting

- Some of the best fruit Martin ever made

- by one of the top winemakers in Germany

- in a wine that will last as long as you do

- for under $30.

Welcome to Germany.

The Wine

Today I’ve got one of the most delicious, most fascinating, novel and profound Rieslings of the 2019 vintage. It’s the 2019 Martin Muellen Krover Letterlay Spatlese Feinherb*** for $29.99 a bottle on a 4-pack and $27.99 on a 12 bottle case. This is what I like to call a “Fass Freak show” in that it’s freakishly delicious but also the wine, by definition is a freak show. First of all Spatlese Feinherb is an unusual category we don’t see often. More on that below and second of all it’s three stars on Martin’s internal rating system which means “finest.” Fine and finer are what one and two stars mean. It’s so profound, so full of character and personality and is a wine that lives in a liminal space as described below. 

The Style - Spectacular But Elusive

Feinherb is one of the hardest to pull off pradikat/ripeness category but when properly executed, it's absolutely stunning. They need to be ethereally light yet also have an intensity to turn as well. There needs to be a balance of the added elements that lift this from Spatlese Trocken to Spatlese Feinherb. Those elements are sugar which adds two things. Texture and sweetness. Spatlese Trockens are more skeletal but Spatlese Feinherbs have some flesh on them but not too much. There is the every so slightest hint of richness and sweetness that adds so much to the wine that it enters a new category. The sweetness is like great service in a *** Michelin restaurant. I like to call it "there but not there." You get up for 5 seconds to talk to someone at the next table. A handshake (or today more likely an elbow bump) and then back. But when you're back your napkin is folded in some unreal shape origami type thing that you cannot believe they have done this in 5 seconds and no one is even close to the table! Did it really happen? That's how the sweetness should be in a Feinherb. It exists in this state that is like peeking out from another reality or dimension. It's present sometimes, but not all the time, and when it is present, it's elegant and "there but not there." 

The Notes

I gave this wine a 9.7 on Delectable. It’s odd that MFW nor WA reviewed it as it’s one of the best off dry wines of the vintage. 

Martin’s top Feinherb in 19. Huge tropical nose with apricot, peach pit, superb wafting minerality and spices. Honey and tree bark. Smells so deep. Bee pollen. Slate and sick minerals. So aromatic and provocative. With air will only get better. 

So young and so energetic. Sappy and dense and only showing 10% of itself which is why I’m offering case pricing. This is a 30 year Feinherb. But what a core of apricot and peach fruit that is almost endless on the palate and it finishes very mineral with a gorgeous opulence on the mid to backend. A stunning wine. Just stunning. As nose opens it gets insanely complex like a spice bazaar. Wow. Huge concentration and such finesse. Superb finish and balance. Unreal purity and length. A brilliant wine. Blown away. Inner mouth aromas. Huge pit fruit on the end. Endless finish. While being big this is ultra delicate and refined. 

As par the course it got better on day 2. Creamy, citrus nose with superb spice and terrific earthy elements. Palate is dense and electric with stunning bitter pit fruits. Juicy and so clean. So clean. So juicy. Wow. Great structure. Fantastic. Drop dead purity. 

A classic Fass Freak Show. Ideally wait 5 years for peak drinkability. Then open one every other year for the next 30 years. 

2019 Martin Muelen Krover Letterlay Spatlese Feinherb*** - $31.99 ($119.96 4-Pack, $335.88 12 bottle case {$27.99})