2019 Riesling G-Max Trocken

In this context (20+ years of G-Max) and tasted blind as wine number 20, the still embryonic 2019 Riesling G-Max shows clear, bright, fine and elegant Riesling fruit in a classic style with saline notes in the background. Dense, saline and spicy yet also juicy on the palate but without any hint of mass or power, the 2019 already sings, plays and laughs, yet it also reveals plenty of tension. It is a true classic with unusual finesse for the G-Max and possibly the beginning of a new style with more purity, finesse and precision? Tasted at Steinheuer's Restaurant Zur Alten Post, Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, in January 2024.

As with this year’s Hubacker – though to an even more striking degree – this opens with a flourish of floral perfume such as one regularly anticipates from Keller’s Abtserde bottling. (But then, part of the mystique surrounding “G-Max” is its vineyard origin, which might conceivably vary from one vintage to the next.) With that comes pit-tinged white peach and pippy lemon as well as intimations of chalk dust and struck flint. The concentration on a silken palate raises the wine’s aromatic impressions to the next dimension, with floral perfume accompanied by a bittersweet note of flower-chomping, stems and all, while the chalkiness becomes palpable and the fruits almost pulpy. Yet there is a sense of lift to belie so much concentration. Marine salinity stimulates the salivary glands to complete the sensual, next-sip-compelling side of a prodigious finish whose stony undertone and citrus pip piquancy simultaneously pull in a more austere direction, while all the while a kaleidoscopic interplay of floral and ineffable crystalline mineral elements dazzles. Almost surely, this wine’s intrigue – and perhaps even its sheer sensual appeal – will be enhanced by cellaring. But I somehow doubt that anyone who gets to share a bottle at this stage will feel regret at uncorking it “prematurely.”

Keller's extremely rare and mysterious 2019 Riesling G-Max displays an intense lemon-yellow color and opens fascinatingly deep, pure, refined and highly complex on the stony, intense and concentrated nose. The palate is a continuation of the nose and reveals beautifully balanced, seamlessly silky-textured richness and mouth-salivating salinity. Sourced from the oldest vines of the family domain, this is the greatest wine I have had from Keller and one of the finest 2018s I have tasted.