Alois Kracher was the first Austrian winemaker to become a superstar and a familiar figure on the international circuit. It was a fitting elevation for he transcended most contemporaries in character and ability.

Kracher seemed an unlikely product for the unhandsome little hometown of Illmitz that bizarrely juxtaposed row upon row of sweet winemakers with vast numbers of dental surgeries. Despite all the blandishments he received in the world, he remained faithful to the wines that had brought him fame. He was dubbed “the king of the sweet wines” for his ability to make up to 15 luscious sweet wines in one year, all different in character but all revealing the elegance that was his hallmark.

Alois “Luis” Kracher was born in 1959 in Illmitz, near Austria's border with Hungary. He was the son of another Alois and his wife, Maria, née Lang. Like so many growers of the younger generation Kracher came of age with the Scandal of 1985, when some unscrupulous growers and merchants were exposed for adding chemicals to their wines to improve their sugar readings. Up to then he had been pounding pills in a Viennese chemist's shop after studying chemistry at a technical college. His father handed him the reins of the family business.

The family's small plot was close to the shallow Lake Neusiedl, where autumnal mists favour the development of Botrytis cinerea, or noble rot, a benign fungus that shrivels the grapes and intensifies their sweetness. Close to the lake, conditions for such wines arrive two or three times a decade, but near Illmitz, small, stagnant ponds with such evocative names as Oberer and Unterer Stinkersee make it possible to produce such wines almost every year — a topographical blessing that explains the profession of a good half of the town's inhabitants.

Kracher's first wines were similar in style to those of his father, whom he always revered. He made Trockenbeerenauslesen so heavy with residual sugar that oney had to virtually thump the bottles like ketchup containers to get the wine out.

His Damascene moment came with the 1991 vintage. It was a great year for noble rot, and Kracher was able to make large quantities of sweet wines. He had visited France in the meantime and discovered Château Yquem. Now he wanted to make even better wine than that. He had learnt that the best dessert wines were not always the sweetest, that elegance and balance were also of crucial importance if he was to surpass Yquem.

To some extent it was a question of planting the right grapes. The best he had was welschriesling, where the rapier-like acidity was useful in preventing sweet wines from becoming too cloying. There was scheurebe too, which had enchanting grapefruit taste when picked super-ripe. To this he could add chardonnay and pinot blanc. He decided that the wines would be made in two styles: a modern range and a traditional one. The traditional wine was called Zwischen den Seen — a reference to the stagnant ponds. These were vinified the old way in acacia casks. The other range was to be housed in new French oak barrels from the firm of Séguin Moreau — the same, as Kracher inevitably pointed out, as Yquem. These were dubbed Nouvelle Vague. Both ranges were sensational.

The 1991s were a revelation, first outside Austria, and only later within. The 1985 Scandal had made sweet wines unpopular, and Kracher needed to convince his own people that they were respectable, and could even be great. In 1993 he put on a blind tasting in London where he pitted the best of Sauternes and Barsac against his wines. He emerged in triumph when the top British tasters picked his wines as the best.

By 1995 he was sitting pretty; that year he made more Trockenbeerenauslese than the whole of Germany. The next year the Austrian magazine News named him the country's best winemaker. More accolades followed.

In later years he was happy to play the world stage and to develop the Kracher brand. Wines he was unhappy with found a variety of uses: in Styria Alois Gölles distilled them to make wonderful schnapps or turned them into fabulous vinegar; in Vienna the master jam-maker Hans Staud made Beerenauslese jelly from them; they went into Edel & Gut chocolate; or were fed into blue cheese by Herbert Schmid, of the restaurant Steirereck and Austria's cheese guru.

He made the acquaintance of Manfred Krankl in California and for many years made wine there. He put grapes in a fridge to make “ice wine”. He made no bones about it: the climate was wrong for real Eiswein, which he continued to make the proper way at home, by waiting for the thermometer to sink below minus 6C before picking the grapes. Eiswein was a boon in dry years when there was little botrytis for sweet wines. He also made the wines of his friend the butcher Hans Schwarz in Andau on the Hungarian border. He liked making red wine, which was a challenge for him, and typically for Kracher, he proved up to it.

He never neglected his own wines despite myriad activities. He remained in Illmitz. In recent years the family house was enlarged many times to accommodate his growth. His holdings in Austria had risen to 40 hectares (100 acres). Warehouses in the town contained the wines he sold on the home market. They were his own favourites from all over the world, which he had tasted on his travels. His enthusiasm was always infectious.

Kracher had the temperament of a bull, an animal he resembled. He was stocky with broad shoulders and had tremendous strength and stamina. He was wont to burn the midnight oil, whether in Vienna or in another of many cities where he felt at home. In Burgenland he was often to be found at the bar in the best local inn — Zur Dankbarkeit in Podersdorf, generally with a glass of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

He gave unstinting support to his fellow growers and encouraged the younger ones to make wine, pushing their bottles forward in preference to his own. They often returned the favour by offering him botrytis-affected grapes when they had no desire to make sweet wines themselves. He was a formidable taster and one of the best in Austria. He made no secret of his views and often alarmed fellow jurors by his pithy comments.

A committed socialist, he resented the choice of a Prince Auersperg to represent Austrian wines abroad, until he got to know Auersperg better, and changed his mind. He was good at changing his mind — it was further evidence of his innate intelligence.

Kracher was found to have pancreatic cancer in February this year. Just before his death he had been allowed out of hospital to meet the King of Sweden, who was visiting Burgenland.

He is survived by his wife, Michaela, née Gangl, and their son, Gerhard, who will take over the winemaking.

Alois Kracher, winemaker, was born on February 23, 1959. He died from pancreatic cancer on December 5, 2007, aged 48