Austria's most planted red is a designed grape. In 1922, at the Klosterneuburg research station, Fritz Zweigelt crossed Blaufränkisch with St. Laurent, aiming to join the spice and structure of the first to the suppleness and earlier ripening of the second — and succeeded so well that the cross, later given his name, spread through every Austrian wine region after the Second World War.
It is the country's red for all occasions: sour cherry and violet, supple tannin, from the carafes of the Viennese heuriger to serious barrel-aged bottlings around Lake Neusiedl, where the warm, shallow lake gives it density without costing it juice. Undemanding in the vineyard and generous in the glass, it made Austria a red-wine country almost by itself.