WINE ADVOCATE - 98-100 POINTS Tasted as a sample in May this year, the 2023 Riesling G-Max is very deep, pure and intense on the nose. Silky, round and finessed on the palate, this is a full-bodied, fresh, very intense and saline, very noble and balanced Riesling that is so generous, smooth and elegant that it nourishes very high expectations. Is this possibly the finest G-Max since the 2019 vintage? The wine will be released in May 2025.
ANTONIO GALLONI - VINOUSE - 99 POINTS The 2023 G Max is from a secret spot of "very old vines on limestone rocks,” says Keller. Reductive smokiness frames the shy nose, which gives just a glimpse of lemon. More air adds a creamy dimension of white peach. The palate also has this gentleness—not obviously creamy, but utterly soothing. It radiates with lively freshness that tingles in the mouth with a barely suppressed energy of lemon zest. Sinking deeper and deeper into stone, it drills down with immense vigor, yet all is calm on the surface. This is a wine that lifts upward but goes relentlessly deep, a wine with two faces, two energies, two equal forces. Drinkers will enjoy the tension between the two. This is pure, gorgeously textured elegance. (Bone-dry)
The sheer brilliance, precision and detail of the Keller wines in 2023 is pure joy. “Two thousand twenty-three was a year that also showed dry phases in June and July, but rains arrived sooner, which made the difference,” Klaus-Peter Keller attests. “We went into the year with very low yields because 2022 had been so dry. Even for Riesling, our 2023 yields were only 40hl/ha, including Kabinett and the estate wine. Pre-harvests could regulate yields in the past, but today, this no longer works. Now, you have to start with lower yields right from the beginning of the growing season, as was the case in 2023.” Keller feels that in a year that had both sun and rain, like 2023, low yields were decisive because they meant “lower stress per vine.” While the rain brought challenges, Keller says, “Once you understood how 2023 ticks, you had great conditions because water was available.”
The sheer brilliance, precision and detail of the Keller wines in 2023 is pure joy. “Two thousand twenty-three was a year that also showed dry phases in June and July, but rains arrived sooner, which made the difference,” Klaus-Peter Keller attests. “We went into the year with very low yields because 2022 had been so dry. Even for Riesling, our 2023 yields were only 40hl/ha, including Kabinett and the estate wine. Pre-harvests could regulate yields in the past, but today, this no longer works. Now, you have to start with lower yields right from the beginning of the growing season, as was the case in 2023.” Keller feels that in a year that had both sun and rain, like 2023, low yields were decisive because they meant “lower stress per vine.” While the rain brought challenges, Keller says, “Once you understood how 2023 ticks, you had great conditions because water was available.”