2019 Frauenberg Spatburgunder Grosses Gewachs

A highly-diversified nose evokes moss, wet stone, roasted red meat and blue fruits. Toast, cocoa and mace notes from barrel are blessedly restrained and really quite flatteringly integrated. Dense on the palate and incipiently silken despite a strong sense of fine tannin suffusion, this finishes with superb sheer persistence while leaning into intriguingly sinister elements: moss, wet stone and burley tobacco.

Keller’s 2019 Frauenberg Spätburgunder GG is even a bit more reductive than the Morstein and displays a tart cherry aroma but remains still discreet in its bouquet. Silky, fresh and vital on the palate, this is a concentrated, tight and sustainable but also juicy and salty Pinot that will need some years of bottle age to shine. Tasted in Wiesbaden in August 2021.

Opens more floral than the Morstein with a dizzying range of deep, dark fruit and dried mountain herbs, stony nuances. On this slender palate, the fruit turns a brighter red, more vivacious with a vibrant, never biting, acidity. Fine juiciness atop a core of herbal, ethereal bliss. A Pinot of unparalleled balance and precision. Yet all that control translates into a beauty impossible to ignore. The legend is true … all who have her wine in their glass must heed the Lorelay’s call. (PS)