2001 Grande Cuvée Nouvelle Vague TBA (Nummer 6)

With its desiccated fruit, low acidity and relative paucity of botrytis, 2000 offered a challenge to Kracher's winemaking skill, and the wines from this harvest were given a slightly longer than usual elevage The results are striking in their purity and richness as well as surprising in their degree of fresh fruit character.Two thousand one, on the other hand, presented rapidly accumulating botrytis, demanding quick reaction at harvest.The finished 2001 wines show a piquant, pungent side to their botrytis concentration.These wines were ready for bottling at a slightly earlier age than the 2000s.They were numbered and the final blendings had virtually been completed at the time of my visit.It was in this state, just prior to bottling, that they have been reviewed below.Two thousand two offered challenges of its own.Inevitably, Kracher explains, some of the concentration and punch was bound to be washed out of the wines, and meticulous attention to such details as the extended use of the lees was necessary to preserve and to some extent compensate for limitations in the raw material.Long-time followers of this estate will know to place that skeptical assessment by a fanatic winemaker in its proper perspective.And indeed, the 2002 "Beerenauslese Cuvee" Kracher had already bottled (which he described as "a TBA by must weight but the TBA character was missing") receives my full endorsement below.(Vin Divino) Also recommended: 2001 #1 Traminer Trockenbeerenauslese Nouvelle Vague, 2001 #2 Muscat Ottonel Trockenbeerenauslese Zwischen den Seen, 2001 #8 Welschriesling Trockenbeerenauslese Zwischen den Seen.