2024 Keller Riesling “Limestone” - $33 per bottle

This is always a most curious moment: presenting the new vintage.

There is something just so beautiful about a wine being the product, the creation, of one year's time, literally. I have to believe that some of the fascination of wine, this ancient culture, must speak to something very deep within us - to our relationship with nature, with the seasons, with time...

And it is, because of this perpetual, cyclical "newness," a thing that is always reborn, a thing that, no matter how familiar we are, we have to be reintroduced to again and again, every year.

It's unknowable; a story without an ending.

We only have beginnings. And this is what this offer is, the beginning of the narrative of what, exactly, the wines of 2024 will be.

I guess we figured we'd start with a bang? Something... how do you say, substantial?

Keller's "Limestone" bottling is one of those fascinations; a simply astounding bottle of wine in its completeness, its form and elegance, its fine-ness and balance... and yet it's affordable and, most of the time, more or less available. So, today, go crazy if you'd like. We may have to cut back some orders, but we'll do our best.

And so what, is 2024 - and what does it say through the "Limestone" bottling from Keller?

2024 is an amazing vintage, it is perhaps the most complete and seamless "classic" vintage of the last twenty years? The comparison vintages flow off the tongues of the winemakers (who have so much more experience and intimacy with the wines), yet two vintages I've probably heard more than others: 2004 and 2008.

Compared to the lightning, to the thunder-clapping 2021ers, 2024 feels more restrained, integrated, more linear and also, importantly, much lighter. Yet like 2021, 2024 is a vintage of low yields, high extract, high concentration, and strong and tensile acidities. The comparisons to the brisk, ultra-charming vintages of 2004 and 2008 comes the closest?

Because the vintage definitely has some electricity, this tension is woven into Keller's "Limestone" bottling. It is not 100% dry - the acidities were simply too strong. The wine came into focus with around 13 grams residual sugar, yet the affect is rather dry -the "Limestone" is woven so tautly with bright citrus and stone fruit, floral and chalky. It speaks to this part of the Rheinhessen, which makes sense as it was sourced from a who's who of vineyards: Abtserde, Hubacker, Kirchspiel, and Aulerde.

For me, this bottle also speaks to the beautiful world of German wine, its openness, affordability, its honesty and integrity. Here we have one of Germany's greatest winemakers - one of the world's greatest winemakers - shaping a bottle that sells at a price nearly everyone can afford. There are few other places where this is still possible.

Here you go, DRC from Germany at $33 a bottle? :) Savor it.

Thank you as always for your passion and support!

Stephen and Robert  

To order please email orders@sourcematerialwine.com.