Zweigelt began in a laboratory: a 1922 cross of Blaufränkisch and St. Laurent made at Klosterneuburg, which within two generations became Austria's most planted red grape. Its best home lies east of the Neusiedlersee, the vast shallow steppe lake of Burgenland, where storks nest on village chimneys and warm gravel soils ripen the grape without effort.
It is Austria's everyday red grown up. In its light form it is the heuriger's wine, sour cherry and violet drunk young from tavern jugs; in the DAC's reserve tier the same grape, given old vines and patient cellars, turns to velvet and soft spice. Few crossings anywhere have moved so smoothly from research station to national identity.