Egon Muller Scharzhofberger Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese 2018

A monastery's hill, bought from the Revolution

The Scharzhofberg is a hill east of the village of Wiltingen, in a side valley of the Saar, a tributary of the Mosel a few kilometers south of Trier. Its vines were probably first planted by the Romans. From about 700 AD and through the Middle Ages it belonged to the monastery of St. Marien ad Martyres in Trier.

The French Revolution changed that. After revolutionary France occupied the west bank of the Rhine and confiscated church property, Jean-Jacques Koch bought the Scharzhof estate from the French Republic in 1797. One of his daughters, Elisabeth, and her husband Felix Muller ran it and, through inheritance and purchases, roughly doubled it by the mid-1850s. Their son, the first Egon Muller, built its reputation; the estate's wines won top awards at world's fairs in London (1862), Chicago (1893), Paris (1900), St. Louis (1904) and Brussels (1910).

The 20th century was harder. Egon Muller II died in an accident in 1941, and the vines suffered through the war. Egon Muller III came home in 1945 after time as a prisoner of war in England and that year made only 1,200 liters of wine from 7.4 hectares. In 1954 he bought into the neighboring Le Gallais estate. His son, Egon Muller IV, born in 1959, worked alongside him from 1985 and officially took charge in 1991; when he did, he replaced the estate's other grape varieties with Riesling alone.

Slate, wind and noble rot

The Scharzhofberg covers 28 hectares of steep slopes facing south and southeast, between 190 and 310 meters above sea level, with gradients of 30 to 60 percent. Its soil is gray and reddish slate, weathered more than anywhere else in the Mosel region, with about 70 percent rock; the red tint comes from iron. Wind through the side valley keeps the site cool with big temperature swings, while the slate stores heat. Part of the estate's holding still carries ungrafted vines planted in the 19th century.

How much of the hill the Mullers own depends on the source: one gives seven hectares of the best plots, others 8.3 hectares. The estate makes about 80,000 bottles a year across all its wines, and Egon Muller IV is the only German member of Primum Familiae Vini, a small association of family-owned wine estates.

A Trockenbeerenauslese is made only when botrytis, the 'noble rot,' shrivels ripe grapes into raisins on the vine, concentrating sugar and acid. In 2005 one critic reported that hardly 15 liters of the estate's 2003 TBA came from each 700-kilogram basket of grapes. Asked how he gets so much botrytis, Egon Muller IV once answered: 'How can we avoid it? If you do enough spraying, you won't get any at all.'

The 2018: 'Inimitable, incomparable'

The 2018 Scharzhofberger Trockenbeerenauslese was bottled with a gold capsule under the official test number AP #12. The Wine Advocate, which tasted it several times between May and July 2020, gave it 100 points and called it 'a perfect TBA today.' Its note describes a white-golden wine whose nose is already seductive, with concentrated white peach merging into mango and papaya, fine honey and raisin but hardly any botrytis tones, then an 'enormously viscous and round' palate carried by perfectly integrated acidity to a finish 'nothing short of endless.' It ends: 'Inimitable, incomparable.'

Jancis Robinson tasted a sample drawn from a demijohn and published a 19 out of 20 on January 31, 2020. She found it slightly cloudy and deep straw in color, with a savory, toasty, 'extremely nervy' nose of honey, acacia and flowers, real spine, and 'the sheer glory of the lime syrup fruit in this featherlight wine.'

Speaking about the run of warm vintages around this time, Egon Muller said the estate had seen September harvests three years in a row, something his father 'would have called me crazy' for predicting. In 2021 an industry report noted that the 2018 TBA had received a perfect score while the 2019 had not yet been rated. The sources found do not state how many bottles of the 2018 TBA were made.

Germany's most expensive wine

Egon Muller does not sell to private customers; its wines reach the market through a few authorized merchants. The TBA traditionally appears at the annual growers' auction in Trier each September, where licensed brokers bid for clients and whole lots of one wine in one bottle size are sold at once. In 2005 one critic described that auction as the only commercial outlet for the wine, where it could fetch 4,000 euros a bottle.

The record came in September 2015, when the 2003 Scharzhofberger TBA sold for 12,000 euros a bottle before fees, 14,994 euros with the 5 percent auction fee and 19 percent VAT. The estate had offered 18 bottles and, as bids climbed, added four more at 12,000 euros to cap the price; 36 half bottles sold for 5,500 euros each. Accounts of the previous record differ: one report gives 5,300 euros for the 1999 TBA in 2011, another 5,000 euros for the 2011 TBA in 2013.

Older bottles fetch as much. In April 2018 a single bottle of the 1976 TBA sold at an online auction to a buyer in China for 12,160 euros. At the 2019 Trier sale, the estate's 2018 Auslese Gold Capsule, a step below the TBA, sold for 1,950 euros a bottle.

The 2018 TBA itself trades in a very thin market. In October 2026 a London merchant listed a half bottle at $5,828 before tax, and a price-comparison service showed an average asking price, before tax, of $16,154 per 750 ml bottle. These are asking prices, not sales.

The numbers

Scharzhofberg vineyard

28 ha in total; estate holding given as 7 ha or 8.3 ha

Elevation and slope

190 to 310 m; 30 to 60 percent gradient

Soil

Weathered gray and red slate, about 70 percent rock

Estate production

About 80,000 bottles a year, all wines

2018 TBA production

Not published in the sources found

Official test number

AP #12 (Gold Capsule)

Alcohol

5.5% (merchant listing)

Wine Advocate

100

Jancis Robinson

19/20

Timeline

1. 1797

   Jean-Jacques Koch buys the Scharzhof estate from the French Republic.

2. 1862

   Scharzhof wines win top honors at the world's fair in London, the first of several.

3. 1887

   Egon Muller I marries; his father-in-law buys out his sister's share of the estate for the couple.

4. 1900

   The estate shows its wines at the Exposition Universelle in Paris.

5. 1941

   Egon Muller II dies in an accident.

6. 1945

   Egon Muller III returns from a prisoner-of-war camp in England and makes just 1,200 liters.

7. 1954

   The Mullers buy into the Le Gallais estate in Wiltingen.

8. 1991

   Egon Muller IV officially takes charge and plants only Riesling.

9. Sep 2015

   The 2003 Scharzhofberger TBA sells for 12,000 euros a bottle in Trier, a German record.

10. Apr 2018

    A bottle of the 1976 TBA sells online for 12,160 euros.

11. 2018

    The 2018 Scharzhofberger TBA is harvested.

12. Sep 2019

    The estate's 2018 Auslese Gold Capsule sells for 1,950 euros a bottle in Trier.

13. Jan 31, 2020

    Jancis Robinson publishes a 19/20 score for the 2018 TBA from a demijohn sample.

14. Jul 2020

    The Wine Advocate completes its tastings of the 2018 TBA and scores it 100.

15. Oct 2026

    The 2018 TBA averages about $16,000 per bottle in retail asking prices.

The world in 2018

• Feb 6, 2018

  SpaceX flies its Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time.

• Apr 27, 2018

  Kim Jong Un crosses into South Korea, the first North Korean leader to cross the Demilitarized Zone since 1953.

• Jul 15, 2018

  France wins the FIFA World Cup in Russia.

• Jul 25, 2018

  Scientists report a lake of liquid water beneath the southern ice cap of Mars.

• Nov 8, 2018

  The Camp Fire ignites in Butte County, becoming California's deadliest wildfire.

• Nov 26, 2018

  NASA's InSight probe lands on Mars.

Price record

This is an asking price, not a sale. It is what a seller wanted on the date shown. Asking prices often sit above what buyers pay, but an ask is not a ceiling: a sale can land on either side of it. It is not a value.

By reference price, Egon Muller Scharzhofberger Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese 2018 is number 6 of 100 in the wine entries of the FLOAT 100. 12 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (3 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Egon Muller IV's son, the next in line, is also named Egon, and so, he once said, is his dog.
• When bidding for the 2003 TBA reached 12,000 euros in 2015, the estate added four more bottles to the lot to stop the price from climbing further.
• The Scharzhofberg is thought to have been planted by the Romans and belonged to a Trier monastery for more than a thousand years.
• Some of the estate's vines are 19th-century plantings on their own, ungrafted roots.
• The 2018 TBA carries about 5.5 percent alcohol, less than half that of a typical table wine.
• In 1945 the whole estate made just 1,200 liters of wine.