What were the reasons for you to become a winemaker and join your parents' business, Felix?

Felix Keller: I was fascinated by working with nature from an early age. I was in the vineyard with my parents from an early age and fermented my first grapes myself at the age of nine—Dad was only allowed to taste when the cork was in the bottle. I love working in rhythm with nature, being outdoors a lot and getting to know lots of nice people through my job.

Isabella, you founded the wine shop "Belles Vignes". Why is a young woman focusing on wine community, which is so strongly characterised by much older generations?

Isabella Keller-Rutayungwa: I studied business administration, so I came from a completely different background. However, I have always had contact with wine, even during my childhood and student days. I founded a wine community at university and realised that this contact with people who work with wine was incredibly positive for me. What excited me the most was meeting family-run wineries. Some of my fellow students were a little surprised when I told them that I wanted to start a wine business. Recently, I met some of them again and they said: "You just realised early on what makes you happy." People often talk about luxury in fine wine. But for me, it's the authenticity that's exciting. And that's what I want to reflect in my range. The best quality, of course, but authenticity, familiarity, and friendship. For me, that's what the wine trade is all about in the best sense of the word: community.

How did you get into wine?

Isabella Keller-Rutayungwa: I grew up with wine as a child. My parents are both doctors and great Riesling lovers. That's why we used to go to the Rheingau two or three times a year. After leaving school, I did a pre-study course in Cambridge and came into contact with the Cambridge Wine Society, which is organised by students. That later inspired me to organise something similar at my university. In the evenings, lots of young people would sit around a table and talk about a wine for hours. I thought: it's amazing that they all have such a passion for wine beyond their subjects. It was like a common thread. After completing my Master's degree, I decided: Now I'm going to do the WSET courses. And I enrolled at Geisenheim. And now I'm in the middle of the Master of Wine programme.

It's a huge challenge to get into a company like this

Felix, what goals did you start out with at the winery?

Felix Keller: I'm the tenth generation of the Keller family and I have a lot of respect for what the generations before me have built up. At the same time, you can always combine tradition with innovation—if I think we can improve something at the winery, I bring it up with my grandad and my parents. They are usually very open to it. For example, we have now purchased a drone for the cultivation of our steep slopes in Nierstein.

You are now working in a new vineyard in Zellertal with single-pole training. Why is that?

Felix Keller: We already do this in the Schubertslay vineyard on the Mosel, which we cultivate. At the same time, I found it exciting to try it out here with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. It's a form of cultivation that was very common 150 or 200 years ago because it produces deeper roots, more shade, thicker skins, and smaller berries. I want even more biodiversity in our vineyards, and dense planting seems to me to be a way for us to adapt very well in times of climate change. I also enjoy planting trees and shrubs in the vineyards and connecting ecosystems. The approach we take is to combine the traditional system with what progress has given us. We try to combine the best of both worlds. However, we cannot cultivate all the vineyards with this intensity. But the bottom line is that it is something that takes us a very small step further at the top. The climate in the Zellertal is now like it was in Burgundy at the beginning of the 1990s. With this return, we have the opportunity to go one better.

Isabella Keller-Rutayungwa: We all believe that you can achieve higher quality faster with dense planting than with less densely planted vineyards. But it's also about the next generation and the next and the one after that. Dense planting also means that the vineyards can grow much, much older, in the past easily 100 to 150 years.

The higher the quality, the more important the community becomes

Aren't these details too complicated for younger wine fans to understand, especially when it comes to top wines?

Felix Keller: Not at all. If you like quality, you can taste it. And of course there's the background and all the explanations. But the most important thing is: what's in the glass has to taste good. For example, we have created a pop-up wine bar, "Bella's Wine Bar". We do this here at the winery with the idea of promoting dialogue. And we notice how many young people come. In November, 150 people a day came to sit down together and share bottles. Fair prices, great quality, great atmosphere—even grandad raved about it.

Do you want to establish sparkling wine?

Felix Keller: Exactly. We have two sparkling wines in our range every year. But there is a great deal of flexibility, depending on the quality of the vintage. That's a very important factor for me. A fixed range is rather difficult because it often doesn't reflect the facets of a vintage. I think it's much more important: what grapes do we have in the vineyard, what can we make the best from them? And not to have it in your head: I need so much of the wine now for this year. Nature is our boss. At Riesling, we may only make Kabinett from one vineyard, the next year we only make dry wine there, the third year we make sparkling wine. It's very flexible and is adapted to the conditions of the year.

Isabella Keller-Rutayungwa: I also see great potential for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in Germany—we have great limestone soils and the climate that prevailed in Burgundy 40 years ago. It makes a lot of sense to me to do away with Pinot Gris and reduce Pinot Blanc in favour of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. I would also like to have a Silvaner vineyard in Morstein again.

If we add a parcel, another area will have to give way

Will you be operating in the future as a sparkling wine and winery?

Felix Keller: No. We will only produce a maximum of 8,000 to 10,000 bottles per year, less in most years. It depends on the climate. Nevertheless, we approach the subject with the highest standards. All of the parcels we use for sparkling wine are in prime locations. We have also replanted many plots for this purpose. With the right genetics, including from Champagne. My focus is on the Pinot varieties, but in years when the opportunity arises, there will also be great Riesling sparkling wines, for example from the Hubacker and the Abtserde.

Is this intended to expand the winery?

Felix Keller: When I joined the winery in 2018, we added 2.5 hectares in Zellertal for sparkling wine and Pinot varieties. We don't want to grow any further. If we add a plot, another area has to make way. If possible, we want to swap good plots for even better ones, so that even the plots for the Estate Riesling are now classified as "Erste Lage" or "Große Lage". However, we often use the younger vines there.

Will you soon no longer be making Estate Rieslings?

Felix Keller: Quite the opposite: for us, a great Estate Riesling is a must—a great entry is a very important visiting card for the winery. We will stick to that.

Felix, have there been any changes that you have pushed through against your father?

Felix Keller: Of course we don't always agree, but very often we do. We sometimes have passionate discussions—and that's a good thing.

Isabella Keller-Rutayungwa: Every lunchtime, we sit together with the team at the long table in the kitchen and eat together—and we talk openly about what's going well and what's perhaps not going so well, preferably with a nice spritzer in a glass. Our team is also allowed to talk openly and we are happy to hear honest opinions. This is the only way we can change and improve things. Felix and Klaus-Peter sometimes spend longer on the road because they like to take a closer look at things on site. If we ever disagree, 99 per cent of the time it's about wine and vineyards—otherwise we are very much in need of harmony. Every decision is reconsidered and thought through. We get together for the first time at half past five in the morning during harvest time and think about whether we should leave the Pinot Noir for another two or three days or press it straight away today. And later we stand in the vineyard and discuss again. Then we make a plan for the day. And sometimes it is overturned after three minutes. The aim is to work with our team to make the wines that little bit better.

When you are as old as your parents are now, Felix: What will your wine list look like?

Felix Keller: I suspect that not much will change. The distribution of grape varieties will be pretty similar. The star of the range will remain Riesling—we have great sites and the perfect climate for it at the moment. In the past, the grape was only perfectly ripe in three or four years per decade, but today there are almost no vintages in which the grapes are not of outstanding quality. Silvaner will remain important because we value it highly and it is part of the Rhine-Hessian tradition. With Pinot and Chardonnay, and also with sparkling wine, I see the potential to produce world-class wines in Germany. We will be working hard on this with our parents, grandad, and our team over the next few years. We are tackling this with a lot of energy and anticipation.

wein.plus: Thank you very much!

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