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Wine Description
The Story
The other relatively large vineyard holding from which a Grosses Gewächs bottling from Weingut Keller is made is from the town of Dalsheim, and this is the Hubacker vineyard. This was the first vineyard that the Kellers owned, and it has been in the family since the estate was started in 1789. The Hubacker is also a limestone-based terroir, but in this case it is a yellow-veined limestone (as is also found in the Burgundy vineyard of Beaune “Sur le Grèves”, which is quickly becoming famous for its brilliant affinity for white wines), and which has a more southeasterly-facing exposure than the Kirchspiel. Consequently the Hubacker is the slowest ripening vineyards in the Kellers’ portfolio. Klaus-Peter reports that it is not infrequent that the Hubacker is harvested two to three weeks after the Grosses Gewächs vineyards in Westhofen. The Kellers’ parcel in Hubacker was planted in 1974. Like the Kirchspiel, the Hubacker is another great, structured and hauntingly balanced dry Riesling that again recalls Trimbach’s Cuvée Frédéric Émile, though in this case it finds most of its similarities with that great Alsace riesling in its structural elements and its never ending persistence on the finish. It is unequivocally a great wine, which Klaus-Peter describes “as often having the most exotic flavors (of the four grand crus) with a deep mineral core.”
Keller Grosses Gewächs bottlings, of which there are currently four different ones for riesling (and one for pinot noir as well- more on that later). In the village of Westhofen there are three: Kirchspiel, Morstein and AbtsE, and from Dalsheim there is only the one grand cru riesling vineyard, the Hubacker. Kirchspiel is one of the two largest holdings of the Kellers, as the estate has three and a half hectares of vines in this beautifully situated vineyard. As mentioned above, Klaus Keller purchased this parcel in 1999. The soils here are very deep and comprised of hard, limestone which runs fully fifty meters down below the surface. Klaus-Peter’s parents, Klaus and Hedi Keller had begun extensive research of their vineyards prior to Klaus- Peter and Julia taking over the direction of the domaine in 2001, and as part of their quest to more fully understand the terroirs with which they worked, they drilled more than sixty thousand holes in their vineyards to plot the composition of their soils and subsoils. Consequently the family really knows their vineyards’ soil compositions, which has allowed Klaus-Peter to fine tune his approach in the last several years.
Vintage 2007
Germany Vintage Report 2007 / The phenomena of climate change and the resulting global warming also affected the year 2007. Once again, meteorological observations made it possible to establish record data: after a winter that was clearly too mild, the Spring weather in April and May was extremely warm. Additionally, although summer was often not very "summer", temperatures recorded during the growing season were the highest since record keeping began (1884), even breaking the record set in 2003.
Naturally, these climatic conditions had a considerable impact on the vines. A very hot April led to an extremely early explosion. Warm temperatures continued into May, so the vines flowered during the second half of the month – the earliest flowering since time immemorial. The heat lasted until early June and by mid-June the vegetation was more than three weeks ahead of schedule. The rather average weather during the rest of the summer reduced this lead. Nevertheless, the grapes began to ripen in the Rheingau on August 3 – precisely from the “record year” 2003. The difference is that the development of the grapes (after early flowering) continued more slowly and evenly , thanks to a better distribution of sunshine and precipitation than in 2003.
Due to this perfect weather regime, the vines had an optimal supply of water and nutrients, and despite the relatively early harvest (due to early flowering), the Riesling grapes could remain on the vines for a long time – an important factor for this grape variety.
Even the earliest harvested grapes had exceptionally high extract values (even higher than in 2005 and 2006) and showed perfect physiological maturity and well-developed aromas. As such, the early harvest yielded fine Kabinett and light Spätlese qualities which will be bottled as Qualitätswein (Gutsriesling).
Overall, ideal weather conditions allowed us to smoothly extend the harvest over seven weeks and selectively harvest the best grapes for the other Prädikat wines. For the 19th year in a row, we were able to harvest all Prädikat, including Trockenbeerenauslese with up to 256 degrees Oechsle, at our Grand Cru sites Kiedricher Gräfenberg and Kiedricher Turmberg.
In addition to the exceptionally high quality of the 2007 vintage, the wonderful climatic conditions of the year allowed us to obtain a higher yield. After five short years, this brings us back to our long-term average.