With lower (10.5%) alcohol and higher acidity than is typical for this (normally nearly-trocken) bottling, the Josts’ 2008 Bacharacher Hahn Riesling Kabinett feinherb smells of grapefruit, mango, orange rind, lily, orange blossom, and nutmeg. Faintly waxy in texture; plush, yet positively billowing in its sense of lift and conveyance of floral perfume, this finishes with precisely the clarity (plenty of wet stone, spice, and flowers showing through) and refreshment that its trocken siblings lacked. It’s so lovely and dreamy now that I’m not sure I would cellar it, but it might well retain its virtues for a decade. Like this year’s sweeter version, it’s something you can’t often get now in this site as it ripens too well. Young Cecilia Jost is taking charge of the cellar here. In 2008, though, she was tied up with a commitment to harvest in Austria, so Peter and Linde Jost were still calling the shots. Given the ripening tendencies of the Jost’s great, steep, near-monopole Hahn (which is the reason Josts have now planted a site high above it to try to get back to real Kabinett) as well as the lees contact that Peter Jost favors, the 2008 vintage offered a possible antidote to high alcohol, lack of transparency or massiveness that are occasionally exhibited at this address, while permitting a later harvest than Josts have “enjoyed” (assuming you consider that the right word) in some years, lasting until November 10.Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300

The 2004 Bacharacher Hahn Riesling Kabinett feinherb smells mouthwateringly of grapefruit, apple blossom, apple pip, and jasmine. The residual sugar is just sufficient to support the flavors of grapefruit, melon and apple as well as the wafting inner-mouth perfume. Toasted nuts, apple pit, wet stones and salt accent the fruit flavors in the satisfying and entirely dry finish. There is also a lovely counterpoint of creaminess and juiciness. This will be a great wine at table and should age nicely for 8 or 10 years as well. The Josts, incidentally, have their own notion of “feinherb” – an elastic term with (at least as yet) no legal parameters – and use it to refer to wines that are on the cusp between trocken and halbtrocken. Much more common is the use of this term for wines at and beyond the upper end residual sugar permitted for labeling a wine “halbtrocken.” There has long been a provision for drip lines in the Hahn as a controlled experiment, but Peter Jost says that Mother Nature pretty much delivered the right amount of water in 2004 without technological assistance. This is not the first year in which the starting point for Jost’s wines was a must weight legally sufficient for Auslese. Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300

Chalk, flowers, and minerals make up the aromatic profile of Jost’s 2003 Riesling Kabinett Bacharacher Feinherb. Light to medium-bodied and surprisingly bright for such a hot vintage, it reveals an appealing, tangy mineral-dominated, focused personality. Drink it over the next 3-4 years. The only other wine from Jost tasted for this report, the 2003 Riesling Spatlese Bacharacher Hahn had disturbingly strange yogurt aromas as well as flavors. Caveat emptor.Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300