The Josts employ feinherb to designate wines that barely missed the cut-off for trocken, so their 2007 Bacharacher Hahn Riesling Spatlese feinherb is effectively a third alternative dry 2007 from its site. It’s also the best of the three in my view, illustrating the major effect that a little bit more residual sugar and a little less alcohol (here 12%) can have on the dynamics of a Riesling wine. Pineapple, grapefruit, and apple aromas and flavors are amplified here, while there is no less a sense of salt, crushed stone, and things mineral. High extract is still palpable, but the wine is not just sappy, it’s exuberant; buoyant on the palate; and fulfills in the finish its first duty to refresh. Based on past experience with Hahn bottlings of similar balance, this should perform well for at least 8-10 years. 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
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