2017 Riesling G Max

Due to the devastation wrought by August 25 hail, particularly in the Brunnenhäuschen (i.e., Abtserde) and Morstein, yields were the lowest at this estate since 1971. But as Keller hardly needed his father (who experienced that earlier harvest) to point out, spectacular quality sometimes compensates for crop loss. Conditions in the immediate aftermath of the hailstorm were the best for which a grower could possibly have wished: a warm, dry and breezy week. And as September wore on – after delivering its considerable spell of largely beneficial rain – it delivered increasingly chilly nights of the sort whose role in enhancing Riesling aromas Keller is wont to emphasize. Harvest was conducted with surgical precision, at times quite literally, when one considers the employment of pruning shears almost as though they were tweezers to remove perfectly ripe berries from partially damaged clusters. In many instances, despite how little he had hanging, Keller asked his pickers to leave behind the sun-exposed sides of clusters and harvest only the shaded halves. “Most days,” he related, “our crew of 25 had less than a thousand liters’ worth of juice to show for their hard work.” An intriguing detail is that for the first time a small share of stems was included in some of his Riesling ferments. This happened in instances where the clusters were already being cut apart to retain only the shaded half and the thick main stem was left behind. Keller stretched out picking for as long as he felt was consistent with his ideals of balance, but even though acid levels remained high and fruit healthy, he chose to finish harvesting for Grosse Gewächse on October 10.

Keller likens his results in 2017 to a combination of high ripeness and richness such as experienced in 2001 with the high-extract, optimum acidity and overall elegance of 2004. (In a 2012 vertical tasting of Hubacker 2001-2010, I awarded the 2004 my highest score; a year later, I found Keller’s vintage 2004 G-Max the most subtly complex and mouthwateringly saline installment of that celebrated bottling to have up until then passed my lips.) Keller adduces his infatuation with the Mosel in pointing with pride to the fact that most of his vintage 2017 Grosse Gewächse are closer to 12% alcohol than to 13%, and even those that flirt with hyper-concentration exhibit notable animation. Apropos of concentration, Keller emphasizes the role of unhurried basket pressing in ensuring phenolic intensity that never shades into outright bitterness nor precludes transparency to diverse (if at times ineffable) mineral notes. Amazingly, given the general paucity of beneficent botrytis in the nearby Pfalz, Keller was able to harvest in minuscule volumes a considerable range of nobly sweet wines, including three Trockenbeerenauslesen and four Beerenauslesen. I regret to report, though, that by the time the record early 2018 harvest permitted me to join Keller for a tasting of his 2017s, the assortment on offer included only a trio of nobly sweet wines. Nearly all of the bottles he opened for me had been set aside for that express purpose, and in the case of numerous nobly sweet single-vineyard wines, he only had left what few bottles of each he expected to cellar for eventual personal consumption and for his progeny.

Keller relayed plans to shed close to four of his 39 acres under cultivation. Not only has he no interest in expanding past the point where he can personally be active in and have a perspicuous grasp of each vineyard and the day-to-day evolution of its vines, he thinks he can exercise beneficial additional oversight and care if he downsizes a bit. What’s more, he now has the distant Piesporter Schubertslay to tend (albeit with some assistance from those vines’ former owners, as explained in my December 2017 account “Homes Away from Home”). I fear that the upshot of this acreage reduction will be an even smaller volume of delicious generic Riesling and Silvaner, but Keller was noncommittal about the details. (For extended accounts of recent developments at this estate, including Keller’s evolving approach in the vineyards and cellar as well as to bottling and marketing, consult the introductions to my accounts focused on his 2014, 2015 and 2016 Rieslings. Some details concerning individual sites will be found sprinkled throughout my reports, but especially in the descriptions of Keller’s vintage 2014 whites and vintage 2013 Pinot Noirs that were my first such published with Vinous.)