2022 Leipold Silvaner Gässberg "Grand Cru" - $42.95
2022 Leipold Silvaner Schilfsandstein "Grand Cru" - $45.95

Klaus Peter Keller writes: "For me, Peter Leipold is on the way to becoming a young genius... He worked for two years here at our winery before leaving for Liger-Belair. He has a special feeling for wine, something you don't learn at school. His Silvaners are great, soil-driven wines that evaporate in the glass... What Peter does with Pinot and Silvaner in Franconia reminds me of what Julian Haart is doing in the Mosel... Peter's wines touch my heart."

As for the Keller quote, you'll have to forgive the blatantly salesy move here, using one of the most famous winemakers in the world to provide a hook into a new, younger grower. But the region of Franconia and the grape Silvaner are just so little understood in the U.S. - we needed a way to convey, quickly, the true greatness of these wines.

Yet the truth is the tremendous success of these wines speaks to their just blatant, obvious and in-your-face beauty.

Even with the region and the grape being largely unknown, Leipold's wines are in demand, especially these Grand Crus.

If you care about deep, mineral white wines with form and rigor - Chablis being the easiest comparative reference, though honestly Peter's wines are more delicate and linear than most modern Chablis - these wines may be a game changer for you.

I suppose we should also mention that buying both of Peter's wines will cost you less than a single bottle of serious village-level Burgundy.

In short: If you're going to recklessly jump into one of our offers, this is the one.

Leipold's wines were featured in our second SM offer, Keller's "Golden Generation," way back in the fall of 2020. They were among the most talked about wines of the collection. People - including myself and @soilpimp - literally freaked out. It's just rare to have a grower, so young, emerge with such a developed style, with such mature and self-confident wines.

Today we release the rarest, top wines: the 2022 Gässberg, from limestone soils, and the 2022 Schilfsandstein from sandstone soils. Both wines are dense, structured giants that will stand the test of time: Silvaner cellar-candy.

Please keep in mind these two bottlings are absurdly small in production - we only get around 15 cases of the wines, total, for the entire U.S.

Keller's reference to Julian Haart is interesting because, like Julian, part of the fascination here is the clear development of a style, a signature, at such a young age. These feel like the wines of someone who has been working in the vineyards for many, many years and knows exactly what they want to do, what they want to say. Yet Peter has only taken over the reins at the family estate in the last few years.

I have no doubt that a line I wrote about Julian - many years before he became the cult darling he is today - will prove true with Peter as well: "These will be wines of consequence."

Here's your chance: The wines are available and fairly priced, right now.

More information on both the wines provided below - both wines should be able to ship later this month. As always, if you have any questions at all, just email us.

Thank you so much for the support!
 
2022 Leipold Silvaner Gässberg "Grand Cru" 
I was introduced to Peter's wines through KP during the pandemic. It's a strange way to learn about anything, let alone wine, removed from the person, the place... just tasting the wine(s) alone in your kitchen. During the height of the pandemic I had cases of samples stacked in my cellar - it was work every night to get through two to four bottles. But I still remember tasting Peter's wines for the first time: Two words echoed in my head: saturation and evaporation. Peter's Silvaners especially are incisive; they are like a thousand nano-arrows of limestone fired into your palate, the sensation is deep and bracing. The wines are immediate, tactile. There are a thousand explosions of flavor, from yellow fruit to flower and mineral - yet the best of his wines are airy too. They seem to levitate. If the energy of the wine reverberates for quite some time - the weight does not. The 2022 Gässberg Silvaner is Peter's most mineral, most linear Silvaner; the soils here are largely limestone and you can feel that structure and grip. The tension, the contrast, is what makes this wine so beguiling - Baroque minimalism. This wine is just superb and will cellar nicely, the vintage especially providing tons of structure.

2022 Leipold Silvaner Schilfsandstein "Grand Cru" 
The Schilfsandstein is sourced from a different site with a very specific type of sandstone. And this is the genius of Silvaner, how sensitive it is to soil, how transparent. This wine is a completely different animal than the Gässberg - it is fuller and more floral. It isn't heavier per se, but it feels more expansive and textural, there is more momentum and push. And this is often the profile you get when comparing limestone to sandstone: tension and cut versus an expansive power. Yet what makes Leipold's Silvaner Schilfsandstein so good is the buoyancy and lift. This is a richer wine, but it has so much energy and bounce - saturation and then, quickly, evaporation. Damn these wines are so good it's silly.

To order please email orders@sourcematerialwine.com.