Blaufränkisch

Blaufränkisch is central Europe's most serious red grape, grown across Austria, Hungary, Germany, Slovakia and the Balkans under a different name in each.

It is a natural crossing of Gouais Blanc — the same humble parent behind Chardonnay and Gamay — with an unidentified variety, and it is a parent of Zweigelt and of several other central European crossings.

The wine has a consistent and recognisable profile: deep colour, high acidity, firm and finely grained tannin, and a flavour of sour cherry, blackberry and damson over a distinct note of black pepper, dried herbs and a savoury, earthy, sometimes faintly iron-like minerality. It is not a soft or immediately generous wine; it has more in common with Syrah or Cabernet Franc than with anything Mediterranean.

Austria's Burgenland, on the warm plain around the Neusiedlersee and on the slate and limestone slopes of the Leithaberg and Eisenberg, produces the benchmark. The Leithaberg wines in particular have a mineral precision that has established the variety internationally.

In Hungary it is Kékfrankos, the most planted red grape in the country and now the mainstay of Egri Bikavér, having displaced Kadarka. In Germany's Württemberg it is Lemberger.

It ripens late and buds early, a combination that makes it vulnerable at both ends of the season and restricts it to favourable sites.

It ages well, developing tobacco, leather and dried fruit over a decade or more.