2006 Grande Cuvée Nouvelle Vague TBA (Nummer 6)

When the 48-year-old Alois Kracher lost his fight against cancer last December, Austria lost her most internationally renowned vintner. Two thousand six was the last vintage in which Austria’s “King of Sweet Wine” actively participated. If this vintage is to be seen as his legacy, then fate had good intentions for him with 2006 as his grand finale. For the seventh time, this time posthumously, the Illmitzer vintner was awarded the “International Sweet Winemaker Trophy” in London in 2008. (In the future, this award will carry his name.) The family winery is now directed by Alois’s talented young son Gerhard, born in 1981, with Gerhard’s grandfather Alois Sr. providing consulting support. The 2006 vintage brought the largest crop since 2002, with benevolent weather for all grape varieties allowing for a relaxed harvest: the first TBA was picked in mid-October and the last botrytized welschriesling grapes came in in December. The Kracher TBA collection from 2006 includes a full spectrum of 12 botrytized sweet wines—as usual divided into two categories, “Zwischen den Seen,” wines vinified traditionally in neutral vessels, and “Nouvelle Vague,” which are fermented in small oak barrels with Sauternes as their model. The wines are numbered consecutively from 1 to 12 according to the must weights of each lot. Incidentally, grandfather Alois Sr. compares 2006 with the outstanding botrytis vintage of 1995. The problematic 2007 harvest did not yield the same quality or quantity as 2006. The first trockenbeerenauslese grapes were picked in September, after which time the weather was quite variable, making picking an adventure