LeipoldSilvaner Keuper Kabinett Trocken (750ml)

This is an estate we were introduced to by Klaus Peter Keller. Peter Leipold, the young son who is taking over the winery, simply has “the touch,” I don’t know how else to say it. Nearly every wine I’ve tasted from the estate is incredibly linear, light, incisive and penetrating yet also electric. Two words keep coming to mind: saturation and evaporation. The wines have a super-fine, glycerine density to them, yet then they are gone, weightless… only the energy reverberating. These wines are Silvaner as mineral scalpel; drink carefully.

Leipold’s “Keuper” bottling (Keuper translates to marl) is in a way the fruitiest, most floral and easiest-going Silvaner that Peter makes. This is not to say it’s easy or simple; it is not. It still has that brilliant clarity, the quinine-inflected, shimmering acidity that defines most of Leipold’s wines.

This comes from the same hill as Leipold’s Grand Cru “Schilfsandstein” bottling – east facing and cool. Keuper itself is a multi-layered rock formation from the Triassic that lies just above the Muschelkalk layer and is close in age. Kepuer often contains marls but isn’t limited to just that. 9 hours of skin maceration, and a longer fermentation going until the end of October usually, 15 year-old vines.