Egon Müller is the most celebrated and highest-priced Riesling estate in Germany, producing wines from the legendary Scharzhofberg vineyard in the Saar that are consistently regarded as among the finest sweet wines produced anywhere in the world. The Auslese category, produced from carefully hand-selected bunches of late-harvested Riesling in vintages where the conditions of ripeness and botrytis development allow, represents the most accessibly priced level of the Müller estate’s extraordinary sweet wine range, above which sits the incomparably rare and expensive Trockenbeerenauslese and Beerenauslese. The Scharzhofberg vineyard’s ancient dark Devonian slate soils, its steep south-facing slope, the Saar valley’s natural temperature moderation from the river’s proximity and the exceptionally long ripening period that its northern latitude provides all combine to produce Riesling of extraordinary mineral intensity, natural acidity and ageing potential whose sweet expressions are capable of developing for decades in the cellar.

The 2018 Saar growing season was warm overall, producing wines of good natural sugar concentration and ripe fruit character, though the vintage’s warmth placed it somewhat below the exceptional 2019 and 2022 in terms of critical consensus: the wine-searcher aggregate of 93/100 across approved publications for the 2018 Auslese confirms its respectable but not outstanding position relative to the estate’s finest vintages. For a wine of this terroir’s inherent quality and the Egon Müller estate’s meticulous selection approach, the 2018 Auslese nevertheless provides a genuine and complete expression of what the Scharzhofberg’s magical combination of slate soils, river valley microclimate and the Riesling variety’s extraordinary acid-sugar balance can deliver in a warm and generous year.

An Egon Müller Scharzhofberger Auslese is, regardless of vintage quality, one of the most celebrated sweet wine acquisitions in the world: a wine from arguably the finest single vineyard in Germany, produced by the family that has farmed it for generations with a commitment to quality that has made the Müller name synonymous with German Riesling excellence at its most rarefied and uncompromising.

Pale gold with a fresh and concentrated nose of ripe peach, apricot, tropical fruit, honey, lime zest, white flowers and the distinctive Scharzhofberg slate mineral that runs through the wine as a cool, precise thread of extraordinary definition. Medium-bodied with superb natural acidity balancing the sweetness, long, mineral, honey-inflected finish of considerable persistence. Best now through 2040.