Preamble 1: While I'm not a fan of some of the Wine Advocate's reviews, their German coverage has always been excellent. First with legendary David Schildknecht and now with the highly respected Stephane Reinhardt. These are about as far from high octane "Parkerized" wines as you can get.
Preamble 2: Please forgive me if there is an "I told you so" undercurrent in here. I've tried to edit it out, but I'm only human.
To The Loyal Mullen Fans on the List: This is a somewhat of a "Muellen is great - tell me something I don't know." But the 2012s and 2013s are perhaps the best wines he has ever made, so even you will be impressed.
To Everyone Who Hasn't Tried Muellen: Your days of missing out need to end. Yes, these wines are from a formerly unsexy area of the Mosel, far from Brauneberg and Wintrich and Graach. But this is now the hot area in the Mosel for dry wines (as it was 100 years ago).
There are certain wines in my portfolio that I believe in with an unflinching faith that no one can talk me off the ledge when it comes to the greatness of winery x. Martin Muellen is that winery for me in Germany. He is a genius. Since my first tasting there in 2012, and the countless times I have been back, I have banged the drum very hard on these wines as I truly believed them to be amongst the greats of Germany. I'll admit I've always wanted to sell more of them and get them in more people's hands but the wines never sounded sexy. Martin has a very long back stock of wines going back to the early 90's, and the wines seem to be impervious to air. They just go on and on. They can be open for days and weeks on end and improve dramatically. It is quite profound.
First up is the 2012 Martin Muellen Trarbacher Huhnerberg Spatlese Trocken*, for as little as $34.99 on a 4-pack. This is Martin's top dry bottling from 2012 and as stated before, the top rated dry wine in all of Germany. (compare with 95 point Keller G-Max for $600+ ... ok I admit that was petty). This is Martin's best site and is always so elegant, so mineral and so fine. This is a wine for for the cellar and is stunning. Freakish concentration, from over 100 year old vines and yet still incredibly well balanced and mineral. Gorgeous aromatics.
Below is Stephan's review.
"The 2012 Trarbacher Hühnerberg Riesling Spätlese trocken * (One Star) is "Hühnerberg pure," says Martin Müllen. And indeed the wine, from probably up to 100-year-old vines offers a fascinatingly clear, lovely floral and slate bouquet enriched with lemon zest perfume. But almost three days later the bouquet was better developed, displaying ripe and fleshy peach, apricot and nectarine aromas. Dense, pure and extremely salty on the palate, this is a juicy, excitingly structured Riesling cru full of power, finesse and mineral expression. A great wine made for the cellar of at least two generations. 96 pts."
This will be allocated. Mixed orders of this and the (mere 94 point) second wine will be given preference.
I am also thrilled to offer one of Martin's most age worthy wines from the great 2013 vintage. The 2013 Krover Steffensberg Spatlese Trocken can be had for as little as $24.99 on a 4-pack. A truly once in a generation vintage that has huge acid and extract and needs many years to come around. I've always wanted to offer a wine from Martin from the great Steffensberg site in Krov. It has outrageous complexity. Always. It is also highly mineral driven even more than Martin's other sites. I love Gernot Kollman's expression of Steffensberg over at Immich-Battiereberg, but Martin's is completely different but just as sensational. Martin emailed me that it demands 3-10 years of aging before it can be approached and was very adamant. So the 2013 Krover Steffensberg Spatlese Trocken can be had for as little as $24.99 on a 4-pack. That is robbery for a wine this good.
Stephane's review is below.
"A rather cool, herbal and flinty Granny Smith aroma is displayed by the 2013 Kröver Steffensberg Riesling Spätlese trocken, which combines the purity of Müllen with the complexity of the Steffensberg. This is a full-bodied, complex, intense and piquant wine with just 11.5% alcohol but a thrilling, tension-filled finish and aromatic aftertaste. This will be a great, energetic, bright and refreshing wine in 10 years but you need patience and trust."
94 pts
I am thrilled that Martin has finally gotten the recognition that he deserves. It has been a struggle getting the word out on his wines as they have a lot going against them commercially. 1) they are from an area of the Mosel that was famous over 100 years ago and Martin's top sites like the Huhnerberg, Paradies and Letterlay are not as famous as Sonnenuhr or Domprobst. 2) his wines have dazzling purity but are done in a distinctly mineral-driven high acid style and even a simple Kabinett Feinherb is not so simple and needs 3 days to air and develop complexity. But man, the way I look at it, is you buy a Kabinett Feinherb, and you get 3 different wines in 3 different days. At $20 a bottle that's $7.50 a pop for three outrageous bottles of wine. And that's just the Kabinett Feinherb! I love this estate!
This has been an unusual E-Mail. So in a highly unusual finish, I will let some one else, Stephane Reinhardt, have the last word as he sums up Martin's mission perfectly.
"Martin Müllen is one of the most interesting, individual wine growers in the Mosel. Originated in Kröv, but located in Trarbach for many years, he is handcrafting wines similar 100 years ago. Muellen says he was always deeply impressed by the site and its 50- to 100-year-old vines. "The same old, un-grafted vines we are cultivating today made Mosel Riesling world famous four generations ago. I wanted to see how modern Mosel Riesling can taste when we produce it from the same vines and in the same way like our ancestors did." So Müllen started handcrafting what he calls "true natural wines": with no additives or other manipulations. He and his team harvests exclusively by hand in great vats, the grapes are then slightly crushed and put with buckets onto the basket press (of which Müllen uses three) and nothing is pumped. Every basket is pressed for 20 hours and the must runs out quite clear and is allowed to oxidize for some hours before it is transferred into traditional fuders and 500-liter oak barrels where the musts ferment spontaneously. "We used industrial yeasts in the early 1980s when we were still in Kröv," Müllen says. "However, when we discovered that the difficult 1984 vintage was tasting like the great 1983 we said to ourselves: No, we don't want that all sites and all vintages taste the same without respect to origins. Since the wines also lacked the creamy texture and super finesse of the former ones, we decided in 1985 to go back to the spontaneous fermentation."Müllen's wine style is quite unique in the Mosel, and that's obvious already in his wine list which is offering Rieslings from the 1990s until the 2013 vintage. For obscure reasons Müllen, whose estate is sober, has obviously no economic need to sell the youngest vintage completely. Indeed, he uses seven ancient cellars in Trarbach, a former stronghold of the Mosel wine trade. "Here the wines can age under optimal conditions," he says. To him, Riesling shows its talents most of all when it is mature. That's why he always puts many wines of a vintage back into the cellars and offers them again when he thinks they are ready to drink. " - Stephane Reinhardt
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