2020 Keller Gruner Silvaner Trocken

It would be no exaggeration to say Weingut Keller consistently produce the finest dry Rieslings in the world, a fact proven year after year since Klaus-Peter Keller took over the reins from his father in 2001. Along with his wife Julia, Klaus-Peter has continued to prioritise the quality of dry wine produced at the estate, and these are now some of the most sought after and collected wines on the planet.

Julia and Klaus-Peter Keller also take their Silvaner very seriously where it’s given the royal treatment, hand-picked, basket-pressed and fermented on its lees. As a consequence it’s powerful and textured, rounder than Riesling, and shows a complex richness with a stony minerality.

Other Reviews....
Greenhouse-like leafiness and cooling green herbs dominate on the nose. These notes then compliment juicy pear fruit on a polished and buoyant mid-palate. The lingering finish is correspondingly wafting, cooling and consummately refreshing while introducing a decided note of chalk. (There’s barely 12% alcohol here.) Incidentally, I owe my luck in being able to taste this to there having been an unsellable bottle with a chipped lip. I was unable to taste the “Feuervogel” version of Silvaner from this vintage. Production is very small, and nowadays, there is nearly as heated a demand as there is for Keller’s Riesling Grosse Gewächse. “Inside of two weeks,” says Keller, “all of our Silvaner is sold out.” But there’s exciting news in this department. Beginning in 2021, there will be a bottling from 60-year-old vines high up by the church in Neu-Bamberg (in the “Rheinhessen Switzerland” familiar from wines of Wagner-Stempel). “You have a layered combination of porphyry and chalk there that may be the geological ideal for Silvaner,” enthuses Keller, “with really striking phenolics. One of our fellow workers brought this parcel to our attention. And because it’s Silvaner, it had been overlooked.” Drink 2021-2026.
90 points
David Schildknecht - Vinous