More intense than its younger sibling the Grüner Silvaner Trocken, the cuvée Feuervogel Silvaner is sourced from 60+year old vines. This wine comes from hand-selected parcels and shows brilliant purity of fruit but with a great reductive, smoky character from the mineral-laden soils. It’s a textural and serious wine that finishes with great mouthwatering acidity.
Grüner Silvaner, or just Silvaner, was once the most planted variety in Germany. Today, it doesn’t even rank in the top five. It currently sits in sixth position behind Riesling, Müller-Thurgau, Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir), Dornfelder and Grauburgunder (Pinot Gris).
Klaus-Peter Keller’s Trocken Grüner Silvaner makes a good argument for the wine to move up a rung or two. As with any Keller wine, there is purity and typicity.
The fruit is sourced from Keller’s GG (Grosses Gewächs, or Grand Cru) vineyards in Bürgel in the village of Dalsheim in Rheinhessen. This classic terroir very well sheltered and sits in a south-facing position. The highly permeated Terra Fusca soils contain high levels of lime giving the wine that characteristic minerality and mouthwatering acidity.
Situated to the north of Nieder-Flörsheim, Flörsheim-Dalsheim (in the municipality of Dalsheim Bürgel) is located in the south-west of Germany near the border with Alsace.
"Cask sample. Comes from Steingrube and Bürgel vineyards, as does the Grüner Silvaner, but Feuervogel is always from the older vines – 50+ years.
Smells riper and richer than the Grüner Silvaner, more pear and stone fruit than herbal. More spice, too. Creamy, inviting. Then on the palate, tension and intensity and a little more severe than I expected from the aroma yet still has creamy citrus. A wine that takes you on a journey of flavours and aromas in a short space of time."
17 points, jancisrobinson.com (March 2019)
