Last Saturday I had the chance to attend a tasting with a full vertical of Klaus Peter Keller Pettenthal GG 2009-2017 and Kühling-Gillot Pettenthal GG 2008-2014.
Keller bought a tiny parcel in the famous Pettenthal vineyard which is part of the “Rote Hang” (red slope) in Nierstein. First vintage was 2009. From 2009-2012 you could buy it straight from the winery, 2013-2015 were part of the famous “Keller Kiste” and 2016-2017 were auctioned.
Tasting both versions side-by-side was very interesting:
Kühling-Gillot’s version is way more open, driven by ripe fruit, usually a bit chubby and partially a bit hot. Especially the vintages 2008-2011/2012 are already good to drink now, without a big potential for further improvement.
Keller’s version is very different. As I have noticed with his other GG’s, he changed his style significantly around 2012 and in 2016 again. It is all about focus, tension and precision. These wines are not made for the short term, but the long run. 2009-2011 could be drunk now, with a decent decant, but I would say, they are still not at their full peak.
I am coming more and more to the conclusion, that these wines need 12-15 years to be at their full peak.
My favorite vintages (and this is true for all Keller GGs) are: 2010, 2013. 2016 and 2017 are hard to rate and grasp for me at the moment, but I can understand, why people think that these could be one day one of the finest dry Rieslings ever made in Germany.
Thanks so much for the write-up. This is a dream tasting. If I may ask do you feel the major difference between Keller and Kühling-Gillot is the quality of the vineyard site or winemaking? And just curious do you purchase both or only Keller? Thanks again.
Heck of a tasting! Very cool. In regards to changes over the years, I believe 2016/17, KP moved to a much more delicate basket press on that wine. I noticed increased aromatics on the Pettenthal for 2017.
In regards to the Pettenthal vineyard, Schätzel is working on some parcel specific bottlings. I believe it is a north and south which may be interesting side-by-side at some point.
What does this mean when you say these vintages were auctioned? Does that mean that all the bottles made went to one owner? Does that mean that a price was established at the auction and then they could only be bought there? I’m curious and don’t quite understand how this works in favor of the Vintner or what it means about being able to buy some of these? Thanks in advance.
I get it’s a special event that the wines are sold at. What I don’t understand is are all of them sold to one individual, are they sold as case lots, and sold until they’re all bought, or something else.
I think what I’m envisioning is that there are maybe fifty 6 packs and the price goes up until they only have 50 buyers. Or something else like a price is set at the auction and then people bid on cases until it’s sold out. I’m just curious to understand how the auction works…
Bidding lots in the auction are one bottle. So you can purchase as few as one bottle or you buy the entire lot. For some wines, there might be as few as 1-12 bottles or as many as 1000. The wines are sold at the lowest clearing price for all bottles on offer, so everyone pays the same price. Most bidders will submit pyramid-style bids with a sliding price scale. My understanding is that if a winemaker has bottles of an auction wine that it wants to sell away from the auction, they can’t do so below the auction prices. Bidding can get complicated for a bunch of different reasons and actual bids can only be made my a handful of commissioners, so you have to make arrangements with one.
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Just to clarify one point- this is basically a Dutch style auction. So when Alex says the lowest clearing price- it means the lowest bid that would still get some bottles if you stack all the bids in descending order.
So for example if there were 10 bottles on offer, and bidder A bid $120 each for 5 bottles, bidder B bid $110 each for 4 bottles and bidder C bid $100 each for 3 bottles- then Bidder A gets 5 at $100 each, Bidder B gets 4 at $100 each and Bidder C gets 1 at $100.
Commissioners handle all the bids, as Alex noted, and also have the right to refuse any bid without reason. I have no idea how often or when bids are refused, but this mechanism would make it possible to keep one person from buying everything if that was considered undesirable.
Also note that the producers are there as well and often will add bottles to the original offering if the producer feels that would be preferable to sharing the bottles around with more buyers and keeping prices from getting excessively high. Willi Schaefer routinely does this- as evidenced by the final number of bottles sold versus bottles offered.
Alex is also correct that producers may sell additional stocks of the same wine that were not offered in the auction- but that the auction price is the lowest price at which they may sell. This is important to note because while some producers will tend to offer most of what they have, many only offer a few bottles at the auction, preferring to retain stocks for future sale (and presumably at a higher price than might otherwise have been achieved had they put more into auction.)
^ I typically think of a Dutch auction as one where the auctioneer starts high and drops low until the lot is sold. As a result there is no incentive to bid your true price. The german auctions are a little different, as you have no transparency into what others are bidding and no (or very little) ability to change your bid.
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Sorry for the late response, but the forum did not sent me a notification…
I don’t know much about Kühlings Pettenthal parcels. I only now, that Keller could buy a prime parcel from F.K. Schmitt.
I would say, that the difference is mainly the different style in cultivating the grapes and the winemaking style. And yes, I do buy more Keller than Kühling. With Pettenthal now beeing auctioned, that might change for this particular vineyard
Sorry for the late response, but the forum did not sent me a notification…
A comparison of Schätzels Pettenthal 2017/2018 vs. KPKs Version would be indeed very interesting. The very few wines of Schätzel that I have tasted so far makes me believe, that they follow a rather similar path in winemaking style. But I would not do this comparison before 2026
Tom explained that very well. It is a rather difficult and very traditional process Just FYI: Next chance to buy 2018 Pettenthal is on September 22th. Details can be found here: https://www.vdp.de/en/events/calendar/veranstaltung/273
Unfortunately you have to contact either a commissioner or a wine merchant like http://pinard.de
Just FYI: Next chance to buy 2018 Pettenthal is on September 22th. Details can be found here: