2018 Riesling Steeger St. Jost Grosses Gewächs

“For the first time in my life I was caught away from home when the harvest began,” related Jochen Ratzenberger Jr. of 2018. He arrived back from a long-scheduled trip to Japan on the day after picking had commenced. It lasted – save for an Eiswein plucked on January 21, 2020 – from the first week in September until mid-October. Ratzenberger takes the viability of that Eiswein as a demonstration of how abundant and impeccably healthy was the fruit of 2018. “We had to really search to find any botrytis,” he noted, thought a tiny amount of Beerenauslese was rendered. “We didn’t add one gram of acidity,” reported Ratzenberger; and indeed, in the dry realm that as usual dominates his portfolio, the 2018s do not lack for estate-typical vivacity. What’s more, even with fruit harvested at over 90 Oechsle – and grape sugar this year varied within a relatively narrow range – the finished dry Rieslings top out at just 12.7% alcohol. (For considerable background on this estate – including its unusual regimen of late release – consult especially the introductions to my reports on its 2014s, 2015s and 2017s.)