Weingut Toni Jost Bacharacher Hahn Riesling Grosses Gewachs, Mittelrhein, Germany

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A strongly saline mineral tang, pungent smokiness, and sappy intensity of citrus and tropical fruits makes for a 2007 Bacharacher Hahn Riesling Grosses Gewachs that is significantly more expressive and less severe than several recent Jost essays in this genre that were among other things handicapped by their alcohol. To be sure, this is a big-boned, pungent, and not especially refined or nuanced, but suggestions of salt, nutmeg and orange and grapefruit zest offer attractive accents to the tropically-oriented fruits in its finish. I agree entirely with Peter Jost’s own judgment that the Grosses Gewachs bottlings have sometimes been incredibly alcohol-heavy and thick, whereas this has – in quotation marks – ‘only’ 13% and is strong in extract, not over-proportional like the 2006. But I would want to revisit this wine – in bottle for only 8 weeks when I tasted it – in 4-5 years before hazarding a prognosis regarding its further bottle evolution. The 2007 vintage was immensely satisfying for the Josts, combining as it did high must weights (but less so than in most recent vintages); ripe acid-retention; ample precipitation (for a flagship site so notoriously dry that it is among the very few in Germany to have been approved decades ago for drip lines); perfect botrytis; and a bumper crop (after several straight years of penury). All of that noted, I was still marginally disappointed by this year’s dry wines. I cannot help but wonder whether the Hahn simply promotes too much sugar in its Riesling grapes for ideal balance at legal Trockenheit. Peter Jost continues to follow a distinctive approach to nobly sweet success – honed only over the past several years – of rigorously removing and discarding in September any botrytis that might not later at harvest be distinguishable from fresh botrytis, and of favoring lower residual sugar and correspondingly higher alcohol in the finished wines than is nowadays fashionable.Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300