WINE WEDNESDAY: 2012 Devon-S Riesling Spatlese Trocken, Mittelrhein, Toni Jost

WINE WEDNESDAY: 2012 Devon-S Riesling Spatlese Trocken, Mittelrhein, Toni Jost 750 500 David Rosengarten

wine for the weekend

“The weekend? That’s five days away!” PRECISELY! Every Monday from now on I’ll be offering you in this space one of the amazing, food-loving wines I’ve chosen to import (after significant globe-scouring)!
The wine will take a few days to arrive at your house—so order now, and next weekend’s parties are set! Please note: I will also continue to recommend great wines to you that are not my imports…every Wednesday, right here, on WINE WEDNESDAY!

 

2012 Devon-S Riesling Spatlese Trocken, Mittelrhein, Toni Jost ($29)devon-s

It was a really, really happy day in January 2013, when I first visited Toni Jost in the charming riverside village of Bacharach, just across from the steep cliffs of the Rheingau which sit on the other side of the Rhine River. But Bacharach, officialy located in the Middle Rhein, or, as the Germans say, the Mittelrhein, has steep vineyards too! In fact, Bacharacher Hahn (the hen of Bacharach), with its Devon slate, is one of the most beautiful steep vineyards on either side of the Rhine!

toni-jost-vineyard

So why do American wine geeks foam at the mouth about Rheingau wines, yet say virtually nothing about Mittelrhein wines just across the river? Because only the Mosel and the Rheingau got into the first English-language texts extolling the virtues of German wine! The Mosel and the Rheingau are like Bordeaux and Burgundy, reputation-wise. The old guard. Happily, we’ve all added LOTS of other French regions to the list of French wines we drink…but, unhappily, the expansion of Americans’ minds to other German regions is just beginning!

I began this expansion on that January day, in 2013, when I was greeted by Peter Jost (who has had the winery in his family for 200 years), his wife and partner Linde, and their enterprising daughter, Cecilia…who is co-winemaker now with Peter, but is in the process of taking over the winery…to the delight of her proud parents! Though…there are stylistic differences between them.

Cecilia is representative of her generation, young German winemakers around 30. They’re not as enamored of the classic German style as their parents are; the light, elegant, sour-sweet tang of traditional wine doesn’t turn them on. What does turn on the young winemakers—and lots of German wine writers today, AND lots of the buying public in Germany—is a drier, more forceful style, not unlike the style of dry Alsace Rieslings.

We’ll see what the future holds for the fabulous Toni Jost winery, as the dad ages, and the daughter comes into her own—but there’s no doubt that Cecilia’s greatest success so far is this very dry, very powerful young wine, named for the great patch of Devon slate on which it was grown. Pale straw-green. Almost a young-in-the-cellar fermentation aroma, combining green apple and under-ripe pear, along with baked quince. Big palate, with rich alcohol impression; it is, in fact, 13%. A perfect transition wine for those used to bigger New World whites…but the singing acidity that lifts the finish is unmistakably German.

On my last visit to Toni Jost, on a wintry day, Linde prepared the family specialty: a fricasée of chicken (hen!) in a creamy mustard sauce, with gorgeous fresh noodles. It was excellent with many Toni Jost wines, but the richness of the dish paired especially well with the dry Devon-S. You can take that as a guideline when contemplating other foods for this wine: delicate ain’t so good, rich is good. I think it might reach its grandest peaks with pork—either in a simple roast, or in a rich stew. Just hold off on sugary additions…

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