Wine Review: Egon Muller Schartzhof Saar Riesling QbA 2004

Today I am lucky enough to be able to taste a well-aged example of Egon Muller’s lovely Schartzhof Riesling QbA. This estate is a favorite of mine, but I still manage to be impressed by the high quality of the what is this estate’s entry-level wine. The 2004 vintage has aged beautifully and although fully mature, the wine still has plenty of life left in it.

To compare this wine to the video of the 2020 vintage of this same wine that I made on the Wine-Searcher Channel in 2024 follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeA5Qak3jvk

N.B. at about 4.23 I name a vineyard as Wiltinger Rauch, that should have been the Saarberger Rauch, sorry about that.

The highly renowned Weingut Egon Müller is based just outside the village of Wiltingen in the Saar Valley, a tributary of the Mosel River. It exclusively grows the Riesling grape, and is particularly known for its wines made from the exceptional Scharzhofberg vineyard southeast of Wiltingen. The current manager is Egon Müller IV, a graduate of Germany’s leading winemaking university at Geisenheim.

Egon Müller’s wines are made at a range of ripeness levels, including Kabinett, Spätlese and Auslese, with Auslese Goldkapsel (with a gold capsule to differentiate it from the standard Auslese) made in the best years. If conditions allow, sweet Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese and Eiswein are also produced.

The Scharzhofberg releases are among the most sought-after of Germany’s wines and the rare sweet wines achieve some of Germany’s highest prices at auction.

Despite the trend towards drier wines in the Rheinland, the Spätlese and Auslese are allowed to finish fermentation while still retaining residual sugar. Because the wines are not dry they cannot be labeled as Grosses Gewächs (Germany’s equivalent of Grand Cru), even though the vineyard has this classification. These wines are made to age and require time in bottle to reach their peak. Muller’s Auslesen can easily live for half a century or more.

A large section of 8.5 hectares (21 acres) on the grey shale slopes of the south-facing Scharzhofberg vineyard, behind the Scharzhof house and winery, forms the heart of the Egon Müller estate. This is widely held to be one of the great white wine vineyards in the world.

There are also half a dozen smaller plots totaling no more than four hectares (10 acres), mostly a little further down-river on the southwest-facing banks of the horseshoe bend in the Saar river between Wiltingen and Kanzem. These belong to the Weingut Le Gallais in Wiltingen which was acquired by the current Egon Muller’s father, Egon III, in 1954 (though half its vineyards are rented, they are not owned outright) and include the Kupp and Braune Kupp vineyards. Fruit from some of the other vineyards features in this generic Scharzhof Riesling.

The estate in its present form dates back to 1797, when Jean-Jacques Koch acquired the Scharzhof farm from the French republic. His daughter (one of seven children) married Felix Müller, and the Muller family have built up a significant holding in the vineyard, which they have farmed ever since.

Egon Müller also produces top-class Riesling with Miroslav Petrech in Slovakia under the Château Belá label. In the Adelaide Hills region of Australia he collaborates with Michael Andrewartha of East End Cellars to make the dry Kanta Riesling from a vineyard owned by Shaw + Smith.

Find out more about this wine, its price and availability by following this link to the Wine-Searcher website: https:https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/egon+muller+scharzhof+riesling+mosel+germany/2004

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