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kleine Pause, in der die Unsicherheit seines Gegenübers Zeit hat, sich auszubreiten. Und Menschen, die zum ersten Mal mit ihm sprechen, sind häu g nervös. Es sind Händler, die hoffen, von den 20.000 bis 90.000 Flaschen, die jedes Jahr sein Gut verlassen, eine Charge zugeteilt zu bekommen. Weinliebhaber, die aus aller Welt anreisen, um das Heilige Land einmal zu betreten. Müller mag vor allem Landwirt sein, aber er ist der Einzige unter den Winzern am Scharzhofberg, der schon einmal, von der Scholle kommend, Autogramme für Touristen schreiben musste.
17 Parzellen gibt es am Scharzhofberg, acht Winzer teilen sie unter sich auf. Müller besitzt das größte Stück. Neben ihm beackern den Berg: Annegret Reh-Gartner, die einzige Frau unter den Winzern, der 37-jährige Max von Kunow, der keine industriellen Spritzmittel einsetzt, und Roman Niewodniczanski, 48, einer der Erben der Bitburger-Gruppe, der sich im Jahr 2000 hier eingekauft hat. Sie sind die Protagonisten am Scharzhofberg, außer ihnen gibt es noch vier andere Betriebe, denen das Schicksal ein Stück vom Garten Eden zugeteilt hat.
He rarely gives interviews and he is reserved, which suggests that he is perhaps arrogant, or maybe a little autistic. He opened up once, for the magazine Enology International, in 2002, where he explained about the distances between vines, cellar temperatures, and the in uence of oak barrels on the taste (overrated). Otherwise, Müller would rather let his wines do the talking for themselves, than be circled in tipsy adjectives by the critics. Some talk of „slate minerality“, or „vibrating acidity“. „Such delicate, ne, yellow and white fruit,”, one writes. „Lychee comes to mind rst, then light peach, and a little bit of white pepper.“
What fascinates people so much about wine, more than beer, whisky or apple cider? Is it the ability to age? How, just like a person, it can become more interesting, more balanced, more rounded - or bitter and inedible - over time? Is it the connection that produces a wine at a certain place, at a certain time? Hardly any other fruit reacts as sensitively to the weather as the grape, and hardly any other type of food can be preserved for so long. Wine is the last sensual approach we have to a past year, the days of sun and rain, storms and even social conditions - such as whether there were enough workers, and which methods were allowed in the cellar.
There is an anecdote about how the father of Egon Müller, Egon III, opened his last two bottles of 1945 Scharzhofberger. It happened in Paris, at a small celebration of the ftieth anniversary of the end of the war. The ‚45 could have been a great vintage, as the summer was warm and dry, but the Scharzhofberg was full of weeds. There was a crashed American Thunderbolt in one plot. There were hardly any harvesters available. All of which must be incorporated somehow in the taste of the wine, which guests drank that day - and the feeling of having a droplet of the world, maybe even the truth, in the glass.
Müller invites us into a library. Folios, and a sofa covered in red velvet. A cast iron crane, hung from the ceiling, and many questions hover over everything: What kind of wine can this be, that people nd it so valuable? What‘s in it? How is Müller able to turn grapes into something which is not quite, but still half, as valuable as gold?
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