2006 Alois Kracher Chardonnay TBA #4 Nouvelle Vague

The brilliant gold, viscous-pouring 2006 #10 Chardonnay Trockenbeerenauslese Nouvelle Vague offers aromas of spiced apple, papaya, strawberry preserves, and an ethereally smoky, truffle-like, musky expression of botrytis that puts noble fungus itself into the circus ring for the first time in this collection. Creamy in texture and surprisingly light in touch, this refined wine sneaks up on you with its complex suggestions of spiced apple, strawberry jam, juicy pink grapefruit, apricot nectar, creme de menthe and fungal and animal nuances harmoniously collaborating to deliver a remarkable degree of sheer refreshment, and building toward a fanfare of a finish. My instinct is to reserve this for meditation, but given its huge sugar and strikingly efficacious acidity – not to mention its sheer diversity of flavors – who knows how it might perform alongside desserts until one has experimented. Certainly 12-15 years in the cellar will not put dents in this. I was not surprised to find the grape Alois Kracher referred to as “my Riesling” taking center stage for both closing movements in his final vinous opus. The 2006s were the last wines Alois “Luis” Kracher lived to vinify, and his son Gerhard – who with his grandfather Alois will continue to manage the estate – brought them to completion. Vintages for nobly sweet wine in the Neusiedlersee’s Seewinkel district can generally be divided between those in which botrytis comes early (such as 2005 and – with a vengeance – 2007); those when it is late (like 2004); and those when it comes not at all (which – as witness 2003 – does entirely rule out the production of BA or TBA from shriveled grapes). In 2006, by contrast, there was beautiful botrytis early, late, and in-between, permitting the Krachers to harvest from mid-October to December. The dozen 2006 TBAs bottled here will doubtless be worthily compared to the 15, by now near-legendary, TBAs of 1995 – the first such extended, numbered series, from a vintage in which Alois Kracher found himself confronted with almost nothing but TBA. In 2006, a number of Auslesen were also bottled (a tradition Kracher revived in 2003), most of which were reviewed in issue 177. Importer: Vin Divino, Chicago, IL; tel. (773) 334-6700