2018 Riesling trocken Alte Reben

“Water was the critical factor in 2018,” opined Cecelia Jost, who has always had the option of irrigating her vines in the Bacharacher Hahn, where an experimental watering system was authorized decades ago. When she activated it in 2018, it had been dormant during the two preceding vintages. So rapid and precocious was the evolution of fruit that picking began at the end of August – albeit with Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc – nearly three weeks earlier than in 2017, which had been the previous earliest recorded Jost harvest. That said, there was a pause before picking Riesling, and the balmy weather encouraged the Josts to take time in certain parcels, particularly for Auslese. They did not finish up in Bacharach until mid-October – with a Spätlese from their vines high up above Hahn – though harvest in Walluf “had to be much hastier,” noted Jost, and was already completed by October 1. Incidentally, Jost claims to have been among the few who weren’t surprised by the size of the 2018 crop. “Nature clearly compensated for the frosted and otherwise drastically reduced crop of 2017 by producing a lot more embryonic berries,” plus there was an abundance of clusters and flowering proceeded perfectly. The “shoulders” were shorn away from all of the clusters long before they began to soften. (For more about this estate and its recent evolution, consult especially the introductions to my coverage of its 2014s, 2015s and 2016s. I reported on some of Cecelia Jost’s pet Pinot Noir projects alongside my account of her vintage 2016 Rieslings.)