At 5.5% alcohol (and 375 grams of residual sugar) the 2005 #10 Chardonnay Trockenbeerenauslese Nouvelle Vague is one of those barely-wine experiences that crop up from time to time at this address. Pear nectar, candied lemon, lily flower, strawberry preserves, brown spices, and truffly, ineffably noble notes of sheer botrytis all elbow their way out of the glass and then saturate the palate. The denizens of Rust are fond of saying that Ausbruch is baroque. This T.B.A. is go-for-baroque in its combination of opulence and intricacy, exhibitionism and intimacy. You can spend a long time visiting the places this wine wants to take you, and the sappy cling with which they leave their mark is positively uncanny.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