Alois Kracher TBA #3 Zwischen den Seen / 2018 / 375mL

Description:

The Alois Kracher TBA #3 Zwischen den Seen 2018 is a Scheurebe Trockenbeerenauslese from Neusiedlersee-Burgenland, botrytis-sweet but lifted rather than heavy. Bright gold in the glass, it carries the tropical fruit and pink grapefruit lift that makes Scheurebe such a distinctive vehicle for noble rot.

Aromatics run to mango, lychee and candied mandarin peel, with blossom honey and a waft of dried apricot underneath. The palate is thick and glossy, sweetness pouring across the tongue before grapefruit pith and quince pull it back into focus.

The Zwischen den Seen bottling is the purer of Kracher's two TBA styles, made without new French oak, and it shows in the clarity here. Acidity is the frame that holds all that sugar upright, keeping the wine tense through a long finish of orange oil and saffron rather than leaving it cloying.

Serve it well chilled in small pours alongside blue cheese, foie gras, tarte Tatin or a simple bowl of poached stone fruit. It is also fine on its own after dinner, where it needs no help at all.

At 375mL this is the sensible format for a wine of this intensity — enough for four or six glasses across a table, without the leftovers a full bottle brings. Half bottles do evolve more quickly, so expect this to come into its secondary phase ahead of a 750mL. Drinking beautifully from now to 2038, with the concentration to go further.