Kracher Welschriesling TBA No. 2 (375ML) 2015
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Wine
Enthusiast -
James
Suckling -
Wine &
Spirits -
Jeb
Dunnuck -
Wine
Spectator -
Robert
Parker
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
An earthy glint precedes the lemony caramel notes that dominate the nose. Honey-drizzled apricots reveal themselves with a second sniff and come on full tilt on the luscious palate. A lovely lemon sharpness along with a delicious streak of bitterness counters the sweetness. Wave upon wave of apricot flavor settles on the tongue, pulsating like an epicenter of pleasure. Drink until 2040, at least. Cellar Selection.
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James Suckling
This has a beautiful cooked-quince and roasted-pineapple character, luscious fruit and excellent substance. The sweetness dries up quickly at the long, elegant, rather salty finish. Drink or hold.
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Wine & Spirits
Nearly half of Kracher’s vineyards are planted to welschriesling, a small-berried massal selection from vines his grandfather planted in 1959. This TBA, vinified entirely in stainless-steel tanks, clocks in at 251 grams of residual sugar per liter and yet manages to feel bright and fresh, shining in its golden marmalade flavors. A pleasant bitterness comes through in notes of dried flowers, saffron and gingery spice while a hint of smoky botrytis rounds the wine. Those savory notes balance this for a not-too-sweet dessert, like apple pie served with blue cheese.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2015 Trockenbeerenauslese No 2 Welschriesling Zwischen den Seen is a beautifully ripe, honeyed, and caramelized apricot scented effort that has a big, thick, unctuous style on the palate. It doesn’t quite dance on the palate like some of the other 2015s from Kracher, but it sure packs a punch with regards to sweetness and length. I suspect it will show more elegance with 3-4 years of bottle age and you could safely cellar bottles for just about as long as you’d like.
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Wine Spectator
Suave in texture, offering a lush profile and featuring flavors of dried fig, apricot jam and orange marmalade. Smooth and complex, with vibrant acidity keeping this balanced and precise. Mineral elements emerge on the finish. Drink now through 2033.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Trockenbeerenauslese No 2 Welschriesling Zwischen den Seen has a clear and concentrated, very spicy bouquet with aromatic quince and diesel/salty licorice aromas. The wine benefits a lot from aeration. Intense, lush and elegant on the palate, this is a powerful, very persistent, even complex TBA that is far too young to be enjoyed in the next 5 to 7 years. The 251 grams of residual sugar are perfectly integrated and balanced by fine tannins coming from the thick skins.
Located in the Seewinkel, an area in the Burgenland region of Austra, along the eastern shore of Lake Neusiedl, Weinlaubenhof Alois Kracher is in possession of a microclimate uniquely suited to the production of Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese wines. 32 hectares of vineyards are planted with Welschriesling, Chardonnay, Traminer, Muskat Ottonel and Scheurebe. Kracher is internationally regarded as one of the finest dessert wine makes. After Alois Kracher passed away in December 2007, his 27 year-old son Gerhard took over responsibility of winemaking. He manages the winery with the same strength, firm will and consequence as his famous father once did.
Apart from the classics, we find many regional gems of different styles.
Late harvest wines are probably the easiest to understand. Grapes are picked so late that the sugars build up and residual sugar remains after the fermentation process. Ice wine, a style founded in Germany and there referred to as eiswein, is an extreme late harvest wine, produced from grapes frozen on the vine, and pressed while still frozen, resulting in a higher concentration of sugar. It is becoming a specialty of Canada as well, where it takes on the English name of ice wine.
Vin Santo, literally “holy wine,” is a Tuscan sweet wine made from drying the local white grapes Trebbiano Toscano and Malvasia in the winery and not pressing until somewhere between November and March.
Rutherglen is an historic wine region in northeast Victoria, Australia, famous for its fortified Topaque and Muscat with complex tawny characteristics.
The source of Austria’s finest botrytized sweet wines, Burgenland covers a lofty portion of Austria's wine producing real estate. It encompasses the smaller regions of Neusiedlersee, Neusiedlersee-Hügelland, Mittelburgenland and Südburgenland. The latter two are most associated with their exceptional red wines. The region as a whole produces no shortage of important whites.
Neusiedlersee, named for the lake that it surrounds to the east, is home to a great diversity of grape varieties. The region’s most notable wines, however, are the botrytis-infected, sweet versions.
Neusiedlersee-Hügelland, which wraps the lake on its western side, includes the town of Rust, a historically esteemed wine community. Its close proximity to the lake’s fog and mist make it another source of some of the more prestigious botrytized wines. Neusiedlersee-Hügelland also produces fine Blaufränkisch, Pinot Blanc, Neuburger and Grüner Veltliner, though a label will usually name the more general, Burgenland, so as not to confuse it with its eastern cousin, Neusiedlersee, across the lake.
Blaufränkisch is well suited to and makes up over half of the vineyard area in Mittelburgenland. The region’s hills and plateaus, which are composed of variations in schist, loess and clay-limestone, produce high quality reds with interesting diversity.
Südburgenland, also known for its deep, complex and age-worthy Blaufränkisch, is beginning to turn out some alluring whites from Grüner Veltliner, Welschriesling and Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc).