The 2008 Kirchspiel Grosses Gewächs is a stellar bottle in the making, that offers up magical complexity on both the nose and palate. The superb bouquet delivers scents of grapefruit, lemon, green apple, petrol, hard limestone, wild yeasts and lime zest in the upper register. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and very, very pure and seamless, with a rock solid core of fruit, bright acids, superb focus and a classic shape on the very long, racy and laser-like finish. Just a superb bottle in the making.

Yellow plum with its pits, pungent parsnip, and grapefruit with pungent bitter-sweetness of zest mark the nose of Keller’s 2008 Westhofener Kirchspiel Riesling Grosses Gewachs, and then come to the palate juicy and invigorating yet texturally rich and silken; suffused with nut oils, crushed stone and savory salinity; and displaying lift and refreshment that would have caused me to guess 12% alcohol, a full percent less than this Riesling in fact harbors. This epitomizes the poise and near-delicacy as well as dynamic interplay of fruit and mineral that 2008 can deliver, but at the same time the sheer richness it can attain. I suspect this will be worth following for a dozen or more years.- DS

Ethereal aromas of apricot pit, lemon oil and pine nuts. Crisp, fresh and light, this wine has what many dry rieslings lack: nerve, poise and balance. The salty minerality is elegant and persistent, the spice penetrating and the finish extremely long. This is my favorite of the estate's dry rieslings to drink today.