2007 Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Auslese (1 Star)
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Tasting notes
Another wine that Molitor offered at auction last September, his Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese three Star smells of apple essence, gardenia, and lily; comes to the palate viscous and custard-like, with brown-spiced apple jelly, malt, Tupelo honey, marzipan, salted caramel, and liquefied floral perfume; and finishes with orchestral and organ-like, multi-registered, tonally soothing and saturating length … bearing in mind that nearly all of those registers are in some sense confectionary. This was harvested on the legal cusp of T.B.A., but for all of its richness it manages to display uncanny levity; most rarified sort of noble botrytis; and a remnant of primary fruit juiciness, so that it can indeed be said to exhibit Auslese character, albeit of a higher order. I would expect this to thrive for 30-40 years. A very small number of bottles of this could be bid on and sold for nearly 300 Euros. The vastness of Markus Molitor’s ambition and energy – as well as of his still-expanding estate – continue to be a cause for wonder. (Consult issues 167 and 185 for further details.) In time for the 2010 harvest, he plans to have moved into completely renovated cellar and receiving facilities, and in the meantime, I can hardly imagine the effort that must have been involved in transferring literally lock, stock, and barrel(s) to the warehouse district on the other side of the Mosel where he and I tasted his 2008 collection. You could say that collection is an abbreviated or stylistically restricted one only in the sense that there are not the dozen or more T.B.A.s that have become a feature of so many recent Molitor vintages, and that have resulted in glass demijohns two and three years deep awaiting bottling. (There were two 2008 Eisweine, one B.A., and one T.B.A. still fermenting when I visited in September.) “This vintage,” says Molitor, “was about, waiting, waiting, waiting … we didn’t really get started until November 10, completely crazy.” Crazy indeed, when one has more than 100 acres to harvest, and no other German grower I know finished as late this year as Molitor (at the end of November). He considers 2008 especially well suited to dry-tasting wines, and the bottled results certainly back him up. “Everybody says in really ripe vintages ‘ooh, great year for trocken!’ but then the wines have too little extract and too much alcohol. I normally bottle 60% dry wines, but in 2003, for example, it was only 7%.” The Molitor label has been redesigned (beautifully, to my eye) but the degree of dryness continues to be signified by a color coding, “trocken,” and “feinherb” being signified now by white and pale green bottle capsules respectively, but not appearing in print on the labels; while unabashedly sweet wines now all (!) receive a gold capsule. Where a dry- and an off-dry-tasting wine here share the same site-designation and Pradikat, one is distinguished from the other in my description by referencing the A.P. #. Bottling is routinely late here, so some wines were still in barrel or tank when I last tasted in September. Only a very small subset of wines is listed in the U.S. (and thus paired with prices in my report), but the importer insists that arrangements are made with those distributors or other customers who are interested in offering any particular wine, and it would be a wise merchant who took them up on this. Importer: Schmitt Soehne, Millersville, MD; tel. 410 729 4083
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David Schildknecht, Wine Advocate
David Schildknecht, Wine Advocate
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The -two star- Molitor 2007 Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese, like its -three star- counterparts both in this vintage and in 2006 - is a dry-tasting wine from a parcel of ancient vines close to sundial itself. Considering it had just been sulfured in preparation for bottling when I tasted it, the wine was in relatively good shape. Apple blossom, honey, and lemon zest are mingled with yeast in the nose. Spice and vanilla notes on the creamy yet invigorating palate point toward oak as well as the site (barrels as low as 500 liter in capacity, and as young as 2-3 years old were employed), and I wonder whether wood - and not just sulfuring and racking - is implicated in the fact that the finish here dries out ever so slightly rather than entirely fulfilling the promise of the wine's rich fruit and flattering texture. But I suspect this impressively rich and impeccably-balanced Riesling will achieve greater clarity in short order, and it should then be interesting to follow for at least 8-10 years. The sheer size of Markus Molitor's sprawling estate, his distinctive style, and his policy of protracted release - about all of which, readers are encouraged to consult issue 167 for further details - point to an incredibly ambitious and almost implausibly energetic individual. When I arrived this year, the huge tasting room was on the brink of remodeling, and if Molitor's plans are approved by the regional zoning authorities, his winery will soon find a new and expanded home built into the hillside beside the Klosterberg vineyard (a site officially attached to Wehlen, on account of its being on the Mosel's Left Bank). The Molitor label will also be undergoing a face-lift, and some of the complex winery-internal conventions that govern wine descriptions at this estate - including the use of stars specifically as an indicator of must weight, and of white labels for dry-tasting and gold labels for noticeably sweet wine - might be modified. In a matter of greater flavor interest, Molitor is in the process of working with Austrian cooper Franz Stockinger to render barrels from his own woods near the Klosterberg. An incredible 20 different Trockenbeerenauslesen, largely of vintages 2005-2006, joined me in the tasting room last September, arrayed in glass demijohns under blankets: Molitor's must weights are frequently so high that fermentation can be measured in years, not months. After two vintages like that, 2007 represented a return to conditions which - at least, at any other estate - would be deemed closer to normal. The efficacious acids of this vintage generally flatter the characteristic high ripeness and opulence of Molitor's style of Riesling. Even with a crew of 60 pickers, Molitor regretted last year that -with our size, we lacked enough time to linger over many vineyards.- Things were dramatically different in 2007. Infamous for his risk-taking late harvesting as it is, Molitor sought to assure me that his crew had many a famous vineyard site all to themselves by the time they went picking. While Molitor's release schedule is intentionally leisurely and he believes in giving his wines long elevage on their lees, most of the 2007s (of which those canvassed in this report - despite their plentitude - do not represent his entire collection) had been bottled shortly before my September visit, and the balance - save for a few very high residual sugar nobly sweet wines - were bottled by the end of that month. Importer: Schmitt Soehne, Millersville, MD; tel. 410 729 4083
About the producer
Markus Molitor is now among the largest privately owned wine estates in the Mosel and also one of the best. With a focus on single-vineyard expressions, the estate produces between 80 and 90 different wines each vintage.