Central Europe's great red is, like so many European grapes, a child of the prolific Gouais Blanc. Blaufränkisch has its modern stronghold in Austria's Burgenland, on the slopes around the vast, shallow Lake Neusiedl, whose warmth ripens it while the grape's own acidity keeps the wines taut. Across the border in Hungary it is Kékfrankos, the leading grape of Eger's Bikavér — the "Bull's Blood" whose name legend traces to the siege of 1552.
As Lemberger in Germany and Frankovka among the Slavs, it wears many names for one personality: peppery cherry fruit, a vein of iron, bright acid and a cool, sappy energy. Tasters place it, aptly, somewhere between the Danube's answer to Pinot and its answer to Syrah.