Müller-Catoir Muskateller

It was a tasting note by American wine importer Terry Theise that motivated me to buy the following wine. Although I do find wine descriptions useful from time to time, it is rare for me to buy a particular bottle purely and solely on the strength of such notes. Then again, Theise's prose – which I've enjoyed reading year in year out for over more than a decade in his annual catalogues – is very unlike most other trains of thought I've read on wine. And I mean that in a good way.

Weingut Müller-Catoir, Haardter Muskateller trocken 2013, Pfalz
Straw-yellow in appearance with exceedingly bright aromatics: fresh garden blossom, nutmeg, greenish appley notes, but also some yellowish suggestions and even a hint of fennel. Quite an exciting panoply of different elements. Cool, complex and vibrant on the palate. No less exciting than on the nose. A slightly glazed feel in the mouth midway through with light-to-medium concentration, although the overriding impression is that of a wine that is cleansing, "grapey" in the best sense, and above all exceedingly vivid with a long finish.

Or, as Terry Theise puts it in his 2014 Germany Estate Selections catalogue: "It break-dances over the palate and sizzles away with this crazy incipient salivating sense of sweetness but of course it isn't sweet. It's like drinking wine while you're stoned, it's derangedly vivid and you can't stop laughing."

Amen to that.