GERHARD KRACHER:The Man with Inummerable Qualities

By Stuart Pigott - last revision: 26.09.26

Let’s be painfully honest and tell it how it is, because that’s the way we roll…

This isn’t just a bad time to be a producer of nobly sweet wines aka dessert wines, this is the worst time to be a producer of nobly sweet wines - since at least the early 1990s! That was the last moment when there was a broader market for them, in fact I think the writing was on the wall after Jane Fona’s Workout video became a huge in 1982. Since then fashion and lifestlye have turned ever more decisively away from dessert wines. Their image in the West is of being unhealthy, ill-suited to the dining table plus that inexcusable 21st century offence: old-fashioned. I find it astonishing how few people question, never mind challenge those preconceptions, but that’s another aspect of our age: the rise of standardized coolness, combined with the decline of personal taste and style. 

That makes it all the more remarkable that Gerhard Kracher, 45, of Illmitz in Burgenland/Austria took half a day to present me his latest wines including his 2023 Collection of seven Trockenbeerenauslese (TBA). Nothing tops TBAs for their image of honeyed unctuousness. OK, 11 of the 30 wines Gerhard showed me under a tent-like structure in the winery's courtyard on a warm September afternoon were dry whites. He also has a wine merchant company Kracher Fine Wine that deals with a wide range of high-end wines, and his wife Yvonne has 92 hotel beds. Most of the money may come from these diversifications, but the core business remains making nobly sweet wines. This speaks volumes for Gerhard's great commitment to the category and his determination to play in the first league.

Worse still, the production of nobly sweet wines on the eastern side of the shallow Neusiedlersee lake, that's surrounded by reed beds, meadows and vineyards, has become a lot more challenging since 2017 due to climate change. The problem is that it's now much drier during the autumn, making Botrytis cinerea aka noble rot much rarer than it was a generation ago. Many years the Lacken, shallow ponds between which the best vineyards lie, dry out during the summer. They used to be regarded as the prime promoters of the autumn fog that lead to Botrytis, and now both are less plentiful. „We were wrong to regard the Lacken as the main source of the autumn fog, because even when the Lacken dry out we still get some fog,“ Gerhard explained to me, „we now think most of the moisture comes from the low-lying meadows.“ So, the very wines that made Kracher famous are now more difficult to produce and a serious marketing challenge.

A lot of red wine producers from Bordeaux to California have been winging about sales problems in recent years, but, as Gerhard pointed out to me, "they have it easy compared with the makers of nobly sweet wines. We are used to problems!" Normally nobly sweet wines are white wines with a pale to deep gold colour, but five of those that I tasted with Gerhard were made from red grapes! Usually when this is attempted the result is a sweet wine with a pink tinged copper colour, but the Kracher wines of this kind are reds, allbeit with relatively pale colours. I can’t think of any other producer who regularly produces wines of this kind. And these are not the cheapest wines in the Kracher range. However, I also enjoy the modestly priced Spätlese Rosé 2025, which is 21st Century Pink Wine Pop Art.

One thing that Kracher’s wines, and those he makes with the famous sommelier Aldo Sohm (of Le Bernardin and Aldo Sohm Wine Bar in New York City), are not is funky in the „natural“ wine sense. And Gerhard makes no secret of the fact that he’s not a big fan of“natural“ wines, finding them too frequently, „oxidized, unclean or just unattractive“. He knows full well that this position makes him uncool in certain circles, or even marks him out as an arch-conservative. However, his self-confidence is way too robust for any of this to worry him. He thinks through all his positions, applying the same self-critical spirit to that he employed when developing the Kracher dry whites and sweet Spätlese. For someone who is clearly so busy with business he does alot of thinking, yet enjoys life immensely.

I was lucky to get to know Gerhard’s father Alois at the very beginning of the 1990s when he was still had a day job in the pharmaceutical industry and was developing the winery's current style of nobly sweet wines by refning and extending what his father had done. Alois was also in the process of becoming the unofficial ambassador for Austrian wines in America, a tricky job less than a decade after the Glycol Scandal of 1985. I first met Gerhard in 1991 when I had dinner with his parents at the legendary RSJ restaurant in London. I seem to have shocked him that evening, you see his parents told him not to speak loudly or gesticulate, and that’s exactly what I did!

Alois’s death in the autumn 2007 was a terrible shock, but it put both the winery and Kracher Fine Wine into Gerhard’s hands. Almost 20 years later the wines are as consistently excellent as they were before Gerhard took the helm, but the range is a lot more diverse than it was back then. Being both their maker and their ambassador clearly suits Gerhard to a tee. These twin jobs plus Kracher Fine Wine give him the diversity of challenges he needs to use his many talents, and to display his inummerable qualities.

NOTE: The tasting notes for all 30 wines tasted follow forthose with paid subscriptions. The first 7 of these notes are free for all. 

2023 KRACHER COLLECTION TBA

Kracher  Burgenland  Muskat Ottonel  Trockenbeerenauslese  Zwischen den Seen Nummer 1  2023 - 10.5% / What a beautiful nobly sweet TBA this is. Such great dried papaya and mangosteen fruit! Lively acidity for this grape, which gives this a light-footedness that’s a dream partner for the great concentration on the palate. Super-clean finish. 97 (SP)

Kracher  Burgenland  Zweigelt  Trockenbeerenauslese Nouvelle Vague Nummer 2  2023 - 9% / Breathtaking vitality on the very succulent palate where the cinammon, strawberry and plum compote flavours cascade over you. Very intense on every level, but even at this very young stage the harmony is there. So spicy at the very long finish! 96 (SP) 

Kracher  Burgenland  Scheurebe  Trockenbeerenauslese Zwischen den Seen Nummer 3  2023 - 9.5% /This great TBA is a dazzling essence of tropical fruits with a freshness that’s totally invigorating, so why not accept it's invitation to dance the tango with it? Fabulously fine texture right through the super-long, uplifting finale. Delicate notes of fresh ginger and shiso leaf develop. 97 (SP)

Kracher  Burgenland  Welschriesling  Trockenbeerenauslese Zwischen den Seen Nummer 4  2023 - 11.5% / Mind-blowing concentration of the ripest possible quince is married to a brilliant acidity and a mille feuille-like structure. Even in this extremely youthful form the wine is a wonder to behold thanks to the extraordinary harmony. Almost endless finish. Gigantic aging potential. 98 (SP)

Kracher  Burgenland  Trockenbeerenauslese  Nouvelle Vague Grande Cuvée Nummer 5  2023 - 10.5% / Exquisite tropical fruit coulis character is married to caramel richness, toasty oak, citrus freshness and serious power without the result becoming a jot too much. Very long and creamy finish, but there’s enough positive energy to lift it, pulling you back for more decadence. A cuvée of Welschriesling and Chardonnay produced since 1991. 97 (SP)

Kracher  Burgenland  Rosenmuskateller  Trockenbeerenauslese Nouvelle Vague Nummer 6  2023 - 7.5% /  If a cook can manage to achieve this kind of harmony of rose petal, violet, dried strawberry, cinammon and forest honeyed character together with this sensational freshness then he would become world famous! Here it is in a bottle and with this combination of vibrancy and concentration the result is totallyextraordinary! 97 (SP)

Kracher  Burgenland  Chardonnay  Trockenbeerenauslese Nouvelle Vague Nummer 7  2023 - 10% / Enormously concentrated and enormously Chardonnay, this is my best nobly sweet wine ever from this grape variety! Very compact and creamy, but also so luscious and lively it’s hard to tear yourself away! The finish so exciting, because of the way that the characteristic tannin of Chardonnay is married to floral honey richness. This is a bit like a steamroller at the finish, but it's the most elegant steamroller in the world! 98 (SP)