2022 Riesling G-Max Trocken

The most recent release of this iconic wine is the 2022 Riesling G-Max, which I gave a score of 95+ last year in the summer when I tasted it for the first time in the context of Keller's 2022 Rieslings, when the wine showed up as a concentrated and intense yet still reductive purist. Six months later, not much has changed. The nose is dense, enormously aromatic and fruity and intermingles with yeasty and salty notes. Dense, round and juicy on the palate, with generous, accessible fruit but also a fine, mineral acid structure, this is again a rather slender, elegant and perhaps less dramatic G-Max compared to the 2021 or 2019. It already dries pretty well this young but will reveal its true character only over the next 10 or more years. The wine will be available in May 2024 (for those who are lucky enough to get a bottle or two). Whether it really has the substance and class of the last 10 vintages remains to be seen. Tasted blind as wine number 22 of the G-Max vertical at Steinheuer's Restaurant Zur Alten Post in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, January 2024.

Tank sample. 'Dedicated to great grandfather George', explains Klaus Peter Keller, 'who bottled the first Keller Riesling in 1921, and our son Max.' They have never revealed which vineyards this wine comes from. Sour-salty citrus with an eye-watering mineral purity. Much more precise and tighter than any G-Max I have tasted before. Less ripe, less raw power, more arrow-like, more refined, more spicy/mineral. Immense length. For my personal taste, this is the best G-Max I have tasted. (JH)