Hello all…greetings from Deutschland!
As you know, I’m in Europe for a few weeks for wine-buying, and a host of other excellent excuses!
One of the key parts of my trip has been meeting with producers with whom we already are doing business–i.e. wineries that I’m already importing and selling.
Such a one is Toni Jost, producer of amazing Rieslings…and situated in the lesser-known region of…the Mittelrhein!
As I discover every time I come to the Mittelrhein…it is plain stupidity that this region gets less attention than, say, the Rheingau…a five-minute ferry ride across the river!
The key Rheingau town of Rudesheim is directly across the river from the vineyards of the Mittelrhein. As you wind along the Rhein, going north…the vineyards even switch over to the Rheingau side of the river! This is a great wine-growing place, and just because the geography is a little complicated…that’s no reason why we should all ignore the Mittelrhein!
I crossed the river this week, and drove through picturesque Mittelrhein towns (like Bopard) en route to Toni Jost. (I even went by the famous Mittelrhein spot called The Lorelei, where sailors of myth met their deaths!)
Finally, I pulled up to the Toni Jost winery in Bacharach, where I was greeted by the Jost family (whom I knew), including their daughter Cecilia (whom I didn’t know)…who is taking over the winery!
But Mom and Dad are still there…and Mom is a great cook! Here I am enjoying a salad made from the wonderful winter green called feldsalat, tossed with egg and bacon.
THEN…. OMG. A chicken fricassee made with cream, mustard, tarragon…along with some of Mama’s special wide noodles. With Riesling on a cold day…this was manna from heaven.
And what Riesling. Jost is one of the best producers in Germany. Last year we imported some killer older wines from them, and a few more will come this year. But we also tasted the amazing 2012s, from what is surely one of the greatest vintages in recent years. Those’ll be in our hands soon, as well.
Most important: Jost is right up there with the other moderns creating the kind of forceful, extracted dry wines that are so popular in Germany today. But theirs (like the 2012 Devon-S) have a little more finesse than usual. AND…they are not afraid to make old-fashioned German wines, the kind of sour-and-sweet confections I learned to love many years ago.
The road goes on!
