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Toni Jost - Hahnenhof

Cecilia Jost was able with 2016 to enjoy a second consecutive harvest relatively leisurely and largely free of botrytis, with top parcels not getting picked until late October. “We’re lucky,” she notes, “that my father and grandfather took great pains to acquire or consolidate relatively large parcels, and only in the case of a couple of exceptionally small ones where our immediate neighbors failed to work scrupulously did we experience any significant challenge from peronospora.” But she adds that not only do the Josts take great pains in culling problematic bunches, “we are even willing and able to dust-off the individual flower heads” to free them from spores of this crippling mildew. Helicopters as usual did most of the spraying in Bacharach, and Jost reports that they were able to take to the air as often as needed. “The 2016s have an entirely different sort of harmony from the 2015s,” she observes of a collection – both from the Jost’s Rheingau and most of their Mittelrhein holdings – that is significantly lower in acidity than its predecessor, albeit featuring acidity that is almost entirely of the efficacious tartaric sort. Modest must weights and absence of botrytis meant that, in striking contrast with 2015, there is but one 2016 Spätlese, rendered under unusual circumstances, and no nobly sweet bottlings. But it strikes me that modest Oechsle and rude good health also played a decisive role in the successful balance of Jost’s dry 2016s. There have been distressingly many vintages during the past two decades – including 2015 – in which alcohol or bitterness handicapped dry Jost Rieslings, while levity of a genuinely Kabinett-like sort had apparently become hard to achieve even in the realm of residual sugar. I certainly hope that the terrific 2016 Hahn Kabinett heralds a sustained return to the combination of tropically ripe flavors with levity that were such a notable feature of the Jost estate in the 1980s and early 1990s.

My most recent visit was among the very few in thirty years of tasting chez Jost that I have sampled any of their Pinot Noirs, and this time it was a substantial number of them. “When I took over officially from my father,” explains Cecilia Jost with a grin, “I recognized that I was inheriting an impressive amount of know-how and track record with Riesling. So in looking for an area where I could leave my mark, I decided, better to stick with slow Riesling evolution but to give special attention to Pinot Noir where I could perhaps start a revolution.” The Jost reds, like their whites, are nowadays commercialized under screwcap. Cecelia Jost says that small volumes of most wines are still being bottled under natural cork and glass stopper (acquiring bottles for the latter from their Walluf neighbor Hajo Becker) just to be able to compare their evolution. “But thus far,” she relates, “in those instances where we observe a significant difference, we prefer the wine that was bottled under screwcap.” As adumbrated in my coverage of the Josts’ 2015s, beginning with 2016 superior mid-to-upper slopes in the Hahn Einzellage have been registered under their cadaster name “Im Hahn,” which now also appears on labels of their Grosses Gewächs, freeing the Einzellage name “Hahn” for continued use on other dry wine labels without violating the VDP’s stricture on multiple dry wines labeled with the name of a so-called “Grosse Lage.” In a sign of the times, Pinot Noir is replacing Riesling in most of the lower part of the Hahn Einzellage, in recognition that rapid acquisition of grape sugar and eventual high alcohol were becoming problematic in dry Rieslings from that sector. (For more about this estate and its recent evolution, consult the introductions to my coverage of its 2014s and 2015s.)

From Rheingau and Mittelrhein Riesling 2016: Stress Test (Jul 2018) by David Schildknecht

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2016 Riesling Jodocus trocken

Color: White

2016 Riesling Jodocus trocken

2016 Riesling Devon S trocken

2016 Riesling trocken Alte Reben

2016 Riesling Steeger St. Jost trocken

2016 Riesling Bacharacher Hahn trocken

2016 Riesling Bacharacher Im Hahn Grosses Gewächs

2016 Riesling Bacharacher Kabinett feinherb

2016 Riesling Bacharacher Hahn Kabinett

2016 Riesling Oberdiebacher Am Schlossberg Spätlese

2015 Spätburgunder Bacharacher

2015 Spätburgunder Wallufer

2015 Spätburgunder R

2015 Spätburgunder Bacharacher Im Hahn Grosses Gewächs

2014 Spätburgunder

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