Places in the Haardt

In recent years, lovers of German wines around the world have been buzzing with excitement about dry and sweet white wines of enormous power and vividness from a previously unknown producer in a hitherto obscure corner of Germany’s vineyards: Muller-Catoir of Haardt in the Pfalz.

Although the estate has been catapulted from complete obscurity to become one of the hottest insider tips in the international wine scene, almost none of the Muller-Catoir fans who snap up every available bottle has met either of the remarkable men behind this extraordinary success.

The owner of the 50-acre estate, Heinrich Catoir, has been described as “aristocratic’ and “haughty.” The shy 57-year-old, who is as fanatical about opera and architecture as he is about wine, is no aristocrat, but he certainly does not suffer fools gladly.

And he makes no secret of his unwillingness to court favorable attention and is not afraid of the consequences. “I feel happiest when differences of opinion are spoken out rather than swept under the carpet,” he says.

This uncompromising approach may be one reason Muller-Catoir is only now beginning to get international recognition, even though it is operating much as it has since 1961, when winemaker and vineyard manager Hans-Gunther Schwarz arrived.

Of course, it may also have been because the estate’s extravagant and spectacular wines did not fit in stylistically with the easy-drinking German wines popular during the 1960s and ‘70s. For years almost the entire production was sold to a cult following of Germans who bought directly from the cellar door.

And quite an impressive cellar door it is too, a huge double wooden gateway leading from the narrow Mandelring street to a tranquil courtyard behind the imposing Catoir house, a baroque mansion dating to the late 17th century that was covered with a bombastic Wilhelmine stone facade in 1904.

Beneath the courtyard and the century-old brick-built press house behind it lie the vaulted cellars. Here stand rows of gleaming stainless-steel tanks where the white wines ferment and mature and a few wooden barrels used only for the estate’s minuscule production of Spatburgunder (Pinot Noir).

The arrangement is fairly typical of cellars in the Pfalz. What is not typical is the combination of explosive aromas and rich, exceptionally vivid flavors that come from the wines made there.

The Pfalz’s 58,600 acres of vineyards lie in the Rhine Valley just north of Alsace in France, on gentle east- and south-facing slopes at the foot of the forested Haardt mountains. They may not be as dramatic as the precipitous hillside vineyards of the Mosel, but the climate here is warm enough for lemons and figs to ripen easily. These conditions result in white wines that combine full body and opulent fruit aromas with the crisp acidity typical of German wine.

Schwarz says that what gives the Muller-Catoir wines their extra dimension of intensity is simple. “My ideas started developing when I was 18,” says the ebullient Schwarz, “simply by observing what happened to young wines in the cellar. I came to the conclusion that the less you did to the wine, the better it tasted.”

He loves to tell the story of a young trainee who asked, “What do we do now?” one January after the last young wine had been taken off the lees (dead yeasts) following fermentation. “We can only cause trouble if we do any more down here, and the vineyards need our attention,” Schwarz matter-of-factly replied.

Clearly shocked, the young man told how his father spent the entire winter filtering the new wines and asked whether this was not essential. “And how do your father’s wines taste?” Schwarz asked in a friendly but direct tone. The young man’s silence answered the question plainly enough.

Schwarz’s unshakable belief that wine can never be better than the grapes from which it is made has led to his lifelong obsession with tending the soil and vines. California vintners refer to the latter with the buzz words “canopy management.”

When Mark Lingenfelder, vineyard manager at Chalk Hill winery in Sonoma County, visited Muller-Catoir recently, he was struck by how every vine shoot had been positioned by hand and every grape bunch that had not developed ideally had been removed.

“These people really love their vines,” he said. “It’s unbelievable. My colleagues would be speechless if they saw this.”

In spite of his natural modesty, the warm-hearted Schwarz glows visibly when the post brings news that another of his wines has received a highly favorable review. Then he is like a father whose son or daughter has earned top of the class.

For Catoir, though, that kind of positive press brings its own problems because he manages the sales. He’s the one who every year must divide up the winery’s annual production of just 120,000 bottles, or 10,000 cases. His policy of loyalty to long-standing customers has frequently led to new arrivals in the estate’s historic tasting rooms being sent away empty-handed.

“We could sell the entire crop several times over,” says Catoir, “so I divide it up among those who I know really appreciate our wines.” It is good fortune for American wine drinkers that importer Terry Theise of Milton S. Kronheim in Washington, D.C., has been a regular caller since the late ‘70s.

Catoir and Schwarz are rightly delighted with their 1996 vintage. The Riesling Spatlese from the Haardter Herzog vineyard has a dazzling combination of power and delicacy. It has retained quite a bit of natural grape sweetness, but the vibrant acidity makes for a balance that is only just off-dry.

Opulent yet absolutely clean, the Auslese from the rare Rieslaner variety (a crossing of the Riesling and Silvaner grapes) from the Musbacher Eselshaut site has the dense mango character this grape gives when picked perfectly ripe.

The explosively aromatic Scheurebe Eiswein, an ice wine made from naturally frozen grapes harvested in the Haardter Mandelring vineyard on Christmas Day, is a masterpiece. Scheurebe is a fickle grape whose wines are either heavenly or hellish. This one has a breathtaking balance of acidity and honeyed sweetness that is matched by a ravishing array of tropical fruit flavors, making it the finest example of this grape I have encountered. It should live for 50 to 100 years, so there’s absolutely no need to hurry with the corkscrew.

But if you want to buy some before it disappears from the shelves, you will need to run. The Muller-Catoir secret is out.

* Muller-Catoir wines are available at the Wine House in West Los Angeles and by mail order from Bill Mayer at Riesling Handicrafted in Berkeley. To order, call (510) 549-2444.