Alois Kracher was a legend. He was living in Vienna as a chemist when he realized he needed to go home to his tiny town of Illimitz and take up the mantle of winegrower. For... Read More

Alois Kracher was a legend. He was living in Vienna as a chemist when he realized he needed to go home to his tiny town of Illimitz and take up the mantle of winegrower. For 30 years he then crafted some of the greatest Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese this world has ever known.

After his untimely death his son Gerhard has continued on the family legacy. There is real skill in making sweet wine balanced and the magic here is equal parts farming and blending. Alois perfected the practice of using different grapes at various degrees of ripeness to impart enough acidity that wines, although sweet, were never cloying.

The bottles age for a very long time, I’ve yet to find one past its prime and I’ve been lucky enough to experience 35+ year old bottles on several occasions. Dessert wines may not be to everyone's liking but it’s hard for me to imagine anyone finding fault with a sip of Kracher after a long meal.