This is definitely one of the craziest offers and for the true geek! And it is also everything we are about. If you did not know it before today now you know you need a Bocksbeutel Jero!
https://sourcematerialwine.com/products/large-format-collaboration-east-meets-east-coming-soon
large format collaboration
S|M x Leipold x @ravingcave
2020 Silvaner “Alte Reben” Bocksbeutel Jero
{ you might not yet realize that you need a Bocksbeutel Jeroboam of Silvaner, but you do}
This bottle, this offering, could be seen as a symbol of celebrations to come.
Hopefully there is a time, not that far away, when we will all begin to gather safely, unmasked, with large numbers of family and friends and break bread and toast to our collective humanity, as we have done for millennia.
A jeroboam, or 3.0 liters of wine, is the equivalent of four bottles in one. This might be a good bottle to have on hand for this special occasion, the “grand reopening” of the world.
But the truth of this offer is rooted in something both more profound and more absurd.
The “profound” part comes from the young grower Peter Leipold whose wines were one of the greatest revelations of 2020. We have to give credit to Klaus Peter Keller for the introduction. Keller has written, “What Peter does with Pinot and Silvaner in Franconia reminds me of what Julian Haart is doing with Riesling in the Mosel… Peter’s wines touch my heart.”
Leipold’s wines, his Silvaners especially, are very hard to describe. They are both searing and incisive, truly saturating. They are ultra-fine, with silken strands of fruit woven with mineral and flowers. They have an almost explosive energy and feel somehow weightless: saturation and evaporation.
The absurd part of this offer comes from our rather childish obsession with large-format bottles and, in the case of the curious landscape of Franconia, their traditional bottle shape called the “Bocksbeutel.”
The first and only time I have ever seen a Bocksbeutel Jeroboam was at a rather posh restaurant in Los Angeles; it was being used as a “by-the-glass” pour for its wow factor. Naturally, I had to hold it, to cradle it in my arms as our young hero, Peter Leipold, is doing above.
The thing had the girth of a newborn baby.
We had been talking with Peter through the fall and winter, eagerly awaiting the bottling of his 2020ers. At some point along the way @soilpimp just said to me, casually as if it was the most ordinary of observations: “I’ll definitely want a bunch of Leipold Bocksbeutel Jeroboams.”
And so it was that we approached Peter and asked if he’d bottle some for us.
When he said yes it felt like a grand enough project to try and weave some more layers into this, so we called our friend the profusive artist @ravingcave and asked him to work through some ideas for a label. He went into his cellar-studio and produced a body of work of more than 30 paintings on paper and two paintings on wood - the entire collection may be viewed and purchased here.
All the works are for sale for the humble price of $30 - you can and should live with real art. We encourage you to delve into the promethean world of the artist @ravingcave. All the proceeds from any art sales will go, obviously, to the artist.
And what about the painting we eventually chose for the label? The organic twists of yellow and green and gold and blue, not unlike the landscape the wine comes from, above? That will be sent to one lucky winner as our gift, just email us at orders@sourcematerialwine.com and your name will be put into the hat. We’ll pick the name and announce the winner on Sunday, March 21st.
While you don’t have to buy a Jeroboam to enter the drawing for the original art, wouldn’t it be cool if you did?
For more on the wine, please see below. As Peter is bottling these just for us, the wines are pre-arrival. We hope to have them stateside by June… in perfect time to celebrate?
To order, reply to this email or simply click here.
2020 Leipold Silvaner “Alte Reben” Bocksbeutel Jeroboam (3.0L): $175.00
The Jeroboams are being bottled exclusively for us and should arrive in the U.S. in late May / June.
Leipold’s Silvaner style is both searing and incisive, truly saturating. The Silvaners I have had from him, even the broader-shouldered Schilfsandstein, are ultra-fine, with silken strands of fruit woven with mineral and flowers. They have an almost explosive energy and feel somehow weightless: saturation and evaporation. The wine that will go into the Bocksbeutel Jeroboam is the 2020 “Alte Reben,” sourced from 32-year-old vines in the Obervolkacher Landsknecht, a site with limestone soils. The grapes underwent some maceration and then a very slow pressing; fermentation in 1250L Stückfass made of Franconian Spessart oak. The wine is still in this barrel and will be bottled in early April. The wine style, says Peter, is more precise and herbal, like the Gässberg.