Kracher’s 2005 Muskat Ottonel Auslese exudes candied orange rind, dried apricot, and pungent sage flower. Waxy in texture and only slightly sweet (despite 85 grams of residual sugar), its bitter notes of quinine and apricot kernel marry nicely with ripe notes of orange and apricot, leading to an understated but lovely, bitter-sweet finish. In and of itself, this will appeal less to those wine lovers who are simply not fond of Ottonel’s distinctive character. But one really ought to play around with it some at table to fully appreciate this wine’s virtues. The inspiring and otherwise irrepressible Alois “Luis” Kracher died last December 5, after a nearly year-long battle with pancreatic cancer. His son Gerhard, 27, and still-active father will continue the work of this exemplary estate. Note: I tasted the Kracher wines of 2005 and 2006 for the reviews above this Spring, and the 2004s in late 2007 and again this Spring. Kracher was restrained in his early judgment of the challenging 2004 vintage, in which he could not start picking noble rot until November, and continued until Christmas. “The first selections were wonderful; the second passage classic, good; the third – kaput,” was how he described it. “From two months of work,” he continued, “we netted 6,000 liters of quality T.B.A.,” from which he promises a modest-sized collection so that – as he puts it – he wouldn’t have to apologize for a vintage that is good but not great. I don’t believe that this was a tactical confession on his part. Kracher was genuinely surprised by the quality that emerged as his 2004 collection evolved, and in the end, he bottled the same number of Trockenbeerenauslesen – ten – as in the manifestly more classic botrytis vintage of 2005.Importer: Vin Divino, Chicago, IL; tel. (773) 334-6700