The winery in Haardt (suburb of Neustadt) in the German wine-growing region of
Pfalz is located at the foot of the Haardt Mountains. It was founded in the 18th century by the Huguenot family Catoir, the oldest document referring to viticulture dates back to 1744. For almost a hundred years, the winery was run by women (great-grandmother, grandmother and mother of the current owner). Today, it is run in the ninth generation by Jakob Heinrich Catoir and his son Philipp David, with Martin Franzen as cellar master. The name Müller comes from a grandmother of the current owner. The vineyards cover 20 hectares of vines in the single vineyards
Bürgergarten,
Herrenletten,
Herzog and
Mandelring (Haardt), Grain and Mönchgarten (Neustadt an der Weinstraße),
Eselshaut (Mußbach),
Mandelgarten and
Schlössel (Gimmeldingen), as well as Römerbrunnen (Hambach). Different soil types predominate, ranging from heavy clay to loess and loamy gravel. The dominant main variety is Riesling with about 60% of the area (12 ha), followed by Rieslaner, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Muscat and Scheurebe.
The great rise began in the early 1960s, when Jakob Heinrich Catoir and his cellar master at the time, Hans Günter Schwarz, began to introduce rigorous quality standards. These included extremely reduced yields through
thinning and very late harvesting with the strictest selection of only fully ripe and healthy grapes. Long before today's
ecological movement, near-natural cultivation with organic fertilisation, permanent planting and intensive foliage training was practised. The finished wine is raked once, lightly filtered and then not moved again until bottling. The result is absolutely pure and fruity wines. Noble sweet predicates up to ice wine are also pressed. Around 130,000 bottles of wine are produced annually. The winery is a member of the
VDP (Association of German Prädikat Wine Estates).
