2020 Barbara Ohlzelt - Riesling Kogelberg

The most incredible part about this very rare bottle of wine is that it tastes more like Morstein than it does of Scheurebe.

Yes, this makes some sense. This bottle is sourced, after all, from a tiny, 0.3-hectare parcel of old Scheurebe vines, about 55 years old, in the “La Borne” parcel of the Morstein vineyard.

This is one of the most joyful, transparent, buoyant and garden-fresh wines that Keller makes. While it’s in no way a culty bottle of wine, at least in the “fine wine” world, it is a bottle obsessed upon by any number of German wine dorks, for the very fact that it both absolutely transcends the grape itself, and, is so profoundly the grape.

This is Morstein first perhaps – but after that, there is no doubt it is Scheurebe.

Which begs the question, for some at least: What the hell is Scheurebe?

The grape is a crossing of Silvaner and Riesling, famous for its black currant, grapefruit, and floral aromatics. When Scheurebe is made sloppily, it has all the charm of a cheap perfume, heavy and chemical-feeling.

However, from the right place, tended by the right hands, the wines can just be stunningly fresh, soaring in fact, and wildly mineral, clear, deep and elegant… which is exactly what Keller’s rendition is.

-Importer notes