Helmut Dolde Silvaner Weißer 2017

Helmut Dolde's Silvaner Weißer Jura comes from some of the highest vineyards in Germany, grown above the village of Linsenhofen in the Schwäbische Alb (Swabian Jura), Württemberg. The vines sit at elevations pushing past 500 meters (1,600 feet) above sea level, on Weißer Jura soils: calcareous marl formed by corals and marine organisms deposited during the Jurassic period, the same geological layer found in Burgundy's marne blanche.

Dolde is a former chemistry and biology teacher who began making wine as a hobby in 1981 and has never held organic certification by choice. He avoids copper sulfate treatments and focuses on leaving the soil in better condition than he found it, working with indigenous yeasts and low-intervention cellar methods. The Silvaner undergoes a 24-hour cold soak, then ferments in stainless steel for 3 to 4 weeks. The wine is unfined and bottled with a small addition of sulfur dioxide.

The 2017 is a dry white (trocken), classified as Qualitätswein, at 12.5% ABV. Silvaner is the traditional variety of this mountain sub-region and in Dolde's hands it expresses the high-altitude cool: taut acidity, mineral salinity, and bright orchard fruit including apple, pear, and white peach, with herbal and citrus undercurrents. This is not a fat or opulent style — it is precise, linear, and refreshing.

The wine is produced under the Württemberg appellation. The winery is located at Beurener Strasse 16, 72636 Frickenhausen-Linsenhofen, less than 30 miles southeast of Stuttgart, near the medieval Hohenneuffen Castle.