2015 Riesling trocken Alte Reben

In view of how rapidly her family’s flagship Bacharacher Hahn can ripen, and given the risk of rot in relatively heavy soils not far from the Rhine at Walluf (where this estate’s Rheingau Riesling and Pinot Noir grow), Cecilia Jost expressed delight with the relatively leisurely and largely botrytis-free conditions that prevailed during the harvest of 2015. It really began in earnest for Riesling in the first days of October, although some early “pre-harvest” culling of Riesling as well as the Pinot Noir picking took place in September. But despite the aforementioned advantages, the Josts ended up with a relatively heavyweight 2015 collection of decidedly mixed quality, of which the notably successful examples managed to evince animation and delicacy.

The expansion of this estate’s portfolio to showcase a couple of cooler locations in side valleys could accordingly not have come at a better time. There are two new vineyard-designated wines in this latest lineup--three if one counts the Josts having registered the core of their near-monopole Hahn under its cadaster name “Im Hahn,” with which their Grosses Gewächs will henceforth be labeled. (Apparently, this gives them a way around the VDP ordinance that demands there be but a single dry wine bottled each year under the name of a Grosse Lage, because there is a 2015 Bacharacher Hahn as well as a 2015 Bacharacher Im Hahn Grosses Gewächs.)

This vintage, incidentally, the Josts completed their conversion to screwcaps by including their Grosse Gewächse in that closure regimen. (They apparently hadn’t been able to obtain suitably Grosses Gewächs-worthy bottles until now.) But they are still bottling small amounts of numerous wines under glass and natural cork closures to permit continued comparative monitoring.